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MR.   THOREAU'S  WRITINGS. 


Walden. 

1  vol.     16mo. 

A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack 
Rivers. 

1  vol.     12mo. 

Excursions. 

1  vol.     16mo. 

The  Maine  Woods. 

1  vol.     16mo. 


TICKNOB  AND   FIELDS,   Publishers. 


EXCURSIONS. 


BY 

HENRY   D.    THOREAU. 

AUTHOR   OF     "WALDEN,"    AND     "A    WEEK    ON   THE    CONCORD   AND 
WEKRIMACK    RIVERS." 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS. 

1866. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1863,  by 

TICKNOR  &  FIELDS, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


GIFT  - 


UNIVERSITY    PRESS: 

WELCH,    BIGELOW,    AND   COMPANY, 

CAMBRIDGE. 


A* 


CONTENTS. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH     ......  7 

NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS     .        .  37 

A  WALK  TO  WACIIUSETT 73 

THE  LANDLORD 97 

A  WINTER  WALK 109 

THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES          .        .  135 

WALKING 1G1 

AUTUMNAL  TINTS         .        .        .        .        .        .  215 

WILD  APPLES 266 

NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT 307 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

BY  R.  W.  EMERSON. 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU  was  the   last  male  de 
scendant  of  a  French  ancestor  who  came  to  this  coun  » 
try  from  the  Isle  of  Guernsey.    His  character  exhibited 
occasional  traits  drawn  from  this  blood  in  singular  com 
bination  with  a  very  strong  Saxon  genius. 

He  was  born  in  Concord,  Massachusetts,  on  the  12th 
of  July,  1817.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College 
in  1837,  but  without  any  literary  distinction.  An  icon 
oclast  in  literature,  he  seldom  thanked  colleges  for  their 
service  to  him,  holding  them  in  small  esteem,  whilst  yet 
his  debt  to  them  was  important.  After  leaving  the 
University,  he  joined  his  brother  in  teaching  a  private 
school,  which  he  soon  renounced.  His  father  was  a 
manufacturer  of  lead-pencils,  and  Henry  applied  him 
self  for  a  time  to  this  craft,  believing  he  could  make  a 
better  pencil  than  was  then  in  use.  After  completing 
his  experiments,  he  exhibited  his  work  to  chemists  and 
artists  in  Boston,  and  having  obtained  their  certificates 
to  its  excellence  and  to  its  equality  with  the  best  Lon 
don  manufacture,  he  returned  home  contented.  His 
friends  congratulated  him  that  he  had  now  opened  his 
way  to  fortune.  But  he  replied,  that  he  should  never 


8  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

make  another  pencil.  "  Why  should  I  ?  I  would  not 
do  again  what  I  have  done  once."  He  resumed  his 
endless  walks  and  miscellaneous  studies,  making  every 
day  some  new  acquaintance  with  Nature,  though  as  yet 
never  speaking  of  zoology  or  botany,  since,  though  very 
studious  of  natural  facts,  he  was  incurious  of  technical 
and  textual  science. 

At  this  time,  a  strong,  healthy  youth,  fresh  from  col 
lege,  whilst  all  his  companions  were  choosing  their  pro 
fession,  or  eager  to, begin  some  lucrative  employment,  it 
was  inevitable  that  his  thoughts  should  be  exercised  on 
the  same  question,  and  it  required  rare  decision  to  refuse 
all  the  accustomed  paths,  and  keep  his  solitary  freedom 
at  the  cost  of  disappointing  the  natural  expectations  of 
his  family  and  friends :  all  the  more  difficult  that  he 
had  a  perfect  probity,  was  exact  in  securing  his  own 
independence,  and  in  holding  every  man  to  the  like 
duty.  But  Thoreau  never  faltered.  He  was  a  born 
protestant.  He  declined  to  give  up  his  large  ambition 
of  knowledge  and  action  for  any  narrow  craft  or  profes 
sion,  aiming  at  a  much  more  comprehensive  calling,  the 
art  of  living  well.  If  he  slighted  and  defied  the  opin 
ions  of  others,  it  was  only  that  he  was  more  intent  to 
reconcile  his  practice  with  his  own  belief.  Never  idle 
or  self-indulgent,  he  preferred,  when  he  wanted  money, 
earning  it  by  some  piece  of  manual  labor  agreeable  to 
him,  as  building  a  boat  or  a  fence,  planting,  grafting, 
surveying,  or  other  short  work,  to  any  long  engage 
ments.  "With  his  hardy  habits  and  few  wants,  his  skill 
in  wood-craft,  and  his  powerful  arithmetic,  he  was  very 
competent  to  live  in  any  part  of  the  world.  It  would 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  9 

cost  him  less  time  to  supply  his  wants  than  another. 
He  was  therefore  secure  of  his  leisure. 

A  natural  skill  for  mensuration,  growing  out  of  his 
mathematical  knowledge,  and  his  habit  of  ascertaining 
the  measures  and  distances  of  objects  which  interested 
him,  the  size  of  trees,  the  depth  and  extent  of  ponds 
and  rivers,  the  height  of  mountains,  and  the  air-line 
distance  of  his  favorite  summits,  —  this,  and  his  inti 
mate  knowledge  of  the  territory  about  Concord,  made 
him  drift  into  the  profession  of  land-surveyor.  It  had 
the  advantage  for  him  that  it  led  him  continually  into 
new  and  secluded  grounds,  and  helped  his  studies  of 
Nature.  His  accuracy  and  skill  in  this  work  were » 
readily  appreciated,  and  he  found  all  the  employment  ' 
he  wanted. 

He  could  easily  solve  the  problems  of  the  surveyor,  j 
but  he  was  daily  beset  with  graver  questions,  which  he 
manfully  confronted.  He  interrogated  every  custom, 
and  wished  to  settle  all  his  practice  on  an  ideal  founda 
tion.  He  was  a  protestant  a  F entrance,  and  few  lives 
contain  so  many  renunciations.  He  was  bred  to  no 
profession ;  he  never  married  ;  he  lived  alone ;  he  never 
went  to  church  ;  he  never  voted  ;  lie  refused  to  pay  a 
tax  to  the  State  ;  he  ate  no  flesh,  he  drank  no  wine,  he 
never  knew  the  use  of  tobacco  ;  and,  though  a  natural 
ist,  he  used  neither  trap  nor  gun.  He  chose,  wisely,  no 
doubt,  for  himself,  to  be  the  bachelor  of  thought  and 
Nature.  He  had  no  talent  for  wealth,  and  knew  how 
to  be  poor  without  the  least  hint  of  squalor  or  inele 
gance.  Perhaps  he  fell  into  his  way  of  living  without 
forecasting  it  much,  but  approved  it  with  Liter  wisdom, 


10  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

"  I  am  often  reminded,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  that, 
if  I  had  bestowed  on  me  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  my 
aims  must  be  still  the  same,  and  my  means  essentially 
the  same."  He  had  no  temptations  to  fight  against,  — 
no  appetites,  no  passions,  no  taste  for  elegant  trifles.  A 
fine  house,  dress,  the  manners  and  talk  of  highly  culti 
vated  people  were  all  thrown  away  on  him.  He  much 
preferred  a  good  Indian,  and  considered  these  refine 
ments  as  impediments  to  conversation,  wishing  to  meet 
his  companion  on  the  simplest  terms.  He  declined  invi 
tations  to  dinner-parties,  because  there  each  was  in  every 
one's  way,  and  he  could  not  meet  the  individuals  to  any 
purpose.  "  They  make  their  pride,"  he  said,  "  in  mak 
ing  their  dinner  cost  much  ;  I  make  my  pride  in  making 
my  dinner  cost  little."  When  asked  at  table  what  dish 
he  preferred,  he  answered,  "  The  nearest."  He  did  not 
like  the  taste  of  wine,  and  never  had  a  vice  in  his  life. 
He  said,  —  "I  have  a  faint  recollection  of  pleasure 
derived  from  smoking  dried  lily-stems,  before  I  was  a 
man.  I  had  commonly  a  supply  of  these.  I  have 
never  smoked  anything  more  noxious." 

He  chose  to  be  rich  by  making  his  wants  few,  and 
supplying  them  himself.  In  his  travels,  he  used  the 
railroad  only  to  get  over  so  much  country  as  was  unim 
portant  to  the  present  purpose,  walking  hundreds  of 
miles,  avoiding  taverns,  buying  a  lodging  in  farmers' 
and  fishermen's  houses,  as  cheaper,  and  more  agreeable 
to  him,  and  because  there  he  could  better  find  the  men 
and  the  information  he  wanted. 

There  was  somewhat  military  in  his  nature  not  to  be 
subdued,  always  manly  and  able,  but  rarely  tender,  as 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  11 

if  he  did  not  feel  himself  except  in  opposition.  He 
wanted  a  fallacy  to  expose,  a  blunder  to  pillory,  I  may 
say  required  a  little  sense  of  victory,  a  roll  of  the  drum, 
to  call  his  powers  into  full  exercise.  It  cost  him  noth 
ing  to  say  No ;  indeed,  he  found  it  much  easier  than  to 
say  Yes.  It  seemed  as  if  his  first  instinct  on  hearing  a 
proposition  was  to  controvert  it,  so  impatient  was  he 
of  the  limitations  of  our  daily  thought.  This  habit,  of 
course,  is  a  little  chilling  to  the  social  affections  ;  and 
though  the  companion  would  in  the  end  acquit  him  of 
any  malice  or  untruth,  yet  it  mars  conversation.  Hence, 
no  equal  companion  stood  in  affectionate  relations  with 
one  so  pure  and  guileless.  "I  love  Henry,"  said  one 
of  his  friends,  u  but  I  cannot  like  him  ;  and  as  for  taking 
his  arm,  I  should  as  soon  think  of  taking  the  arm  of  an 
elm-tree." 

Yet,  hermit  and  stoic  as  he  was,  he  was  really  fond 
of  sympathy,  and  threw  himself  heartily  and  childlike 
into  the  company  of  young  people  whom  he  loved,  and 
whom  he  delighted  to  entertain,  as  he  only  could,  witli 
the  varied  and  endless  anecdotes  of  his  experiences  by 
field  and  river.  And  lie  was  always  ready  to  lead  a 
huckleberry  party  or  a  search  for  chestnuts  or  grapes. 
Talking,  one  day,  of  a  public  discourse,  Henry  remarked, 
that  whatever  succeeded  with  the  audience  was  bad.  I 
said,  u  Who  would  not  like  to  write  something  which  all 
can  read,  like  '  Robinson  Crusoe '  ?  and  wrho  does  not 
see  with  regret  that  his  page  is  not  solid  with  a  right 
materialistic  treatment,  which  delights  everybody  ? 
Henry  objected,  of  course,  and  vaunted  the  better  lec 
tures  which  reached  only  a  few  persons.  But,  at  sup- 


12  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

per,  a  young  girl,  understanding  that  he  was  to  lecture 
at  the  Lyceum,  sharply  asked  him,  "  whether  his  lecture 
would  be  a  nice,  interesting  story,  such  as  she  wished  to 
hear,  or  whether  it  was  one  of  those  old  philosophical 
things  that  she  did  not  care  about."  Henry  turned  to 
her,  and  bethought  himself,  and,  I  saw,  was  trying  to 
believe  that  he  had  matter  that  might  fit  her  and  her 
brother,  who  were  to  sit  up  and  go  to  the  lecture,  if  it 
was  a  good  one  for  them. 

He  was  a  speaker  and  actor  of  the  truth,  —  born 
such,  —  and  was  ever  running  into  dramatic  situations 
from  this  cause.  In  any  circumstance,  it  interested  all 
bystanders  to  know  what  part  Henry  would  take,  and 
what  he  would  say  ;  and  he  did  not  disappoint  expec 
tation,  but  used  an  original  judgment  on  each  emer 
gency.  In  1845  he  built  himself  a  small  framed  house 
on  the  shores  of  Walden  Pond,  and  lived  there  two 
years  alone,  a  life  of  labor  and  study.  This  action  was 

'  quite  native  and  fit  for  him.  No  one  who  knew  him 
would  tax  him  with  affectation.  He  was  more  unlike 

--his  neighbors  in  his  thought  than  in  his  action.  As  soon 
as  he  had  exhausted  the  advantages  of  that  solitude,  he 
abandoned  it.  In  1847,  not  approving  some  uses  to 
which  the  public  expenditure  was  applied,  he  refused  to 
pay  his  town  tax,  and  was  put  in  jail.  A  friend  paid 
the  tax  for  him,  and  he  was  released.  The  like  annoy 
ance  was  threatened  the  next  year.  But,  as  his  friends 
paid  the  tax,  notwithstanding  his  protest,  I  believe  he 
ceased  to  resist.  No  opposition  or  ridicule  had  any 
weight  with  him.  He  coldly  and  fully  stated  his  opinion 
without  affecting  to  believe  that  it  was  the  opinion  of 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  13 

the  company.  It  was  of  no  consequence,  if  every  one 
present  held  the  opposite  opinion.  On  one  occasion  he 
went  to  the  University  Library  to  procure  some  books. 
The  librarian  refused  to  lend  them.  Mr.  Thoreau  re 
paired  to  the  President,  who  stated  to  him  the  rules  and 
usages,  which  permitted  the  loan  of  books  to  resident 
graduates,  to  clergymen  who  were  alumni,  and  to  some 
others  resident  within  a  circle  of  ten  miles'  radius  from 
the  College.  Mr.  Thoreau  explained  to  the  President 
that  the  railroad  had  destroyed  the  old  scale  of  distances, 
—  that  the  library  was  useless,  yes,  and  President  and 
College  useless,  on  the  terms  of  his  rules,  —  that  the 
one  benefit  he  owed  to  the  College  was  its  library,  — 
that,  at  this  moment,  not  only  his  want  of  books  was 
imperative,  but  he  wanted  a  large  number  of  books,  and 
assured  him  that  he,  Thoreau,  and  not  the  librarian, 
was  the  proper  custodian  of  these.  In  short,  the  Presi 
dent  found  the  petitioner  so  formidable,  and  the  rules 
getting  to  look  so  ridiculous,  that  he  ended  by  giving 
him  a  privilege  which  in  his  hands  proved  unlimited 
thereafter. 

No  truer  American  existed  than  Thoreau.  His  pref 
erence  of  his  country  and  condition  was  genuine,  and 
his  aversation  from  English  and  European  manners 
and  tastes  almost  reached  contempt.  He  listened  im 
patiently  to  news  or  ban  mots  gleaned  from  London 
circles  ;  and  though  he  tried  to  be  civil,  these  anecdotes 
fatigued  him.  The  men  were  all  imitating  each  other, 
and  on  a  small  mould.  Why  can  they  not  live  as  far 
apart  as  possible,  and  each  be  a  man  by  himself?  What 
he  sought  was  the  most  energetic  nature  ;  and  he  wished 


14  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

to  go  to  Oregon,  not  to  London.  "In  every  part  of 
Great  Britain,"  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  "  are  discovered 
traces  of  the  Romans,  their  funereal  urns,  their  camps, 
their  roads,  their  dwellings.  But  New  England,  at 
least,  is  not  based  on  any  Roman  ruins.  We  have  not 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  our  houses  on  the  ashes  of  a 
former  civilization." 

But,  idealist  as  he  was,  standing  for  abolition  of  sla 
very,  abolition  of  tariffs,  almost  for  abolition  of  govern 
ment,  it  is  needless  to  say  he  found  himself  not  only  un 
represented  in  actual  politics,  but  almost  equally  opposed 
to  every  class  of  reformers.  Yet  he  paid  the  tribute 
of  his  uniform  respect  to  the  Anti-Slavery  Party.  One 
man,  whose  personal  acquaintance  he  had  formed,  he 
-honored  with  exceptional  regard.  Before  the  first 
friendly  word  had  been  spoken  for  Captain  John 
Brown,  after  the  arrest,  he  sent  notices  to  most  houses 
in  Concord,  that  he  would  speak  in  a  public  hall  on 
the  condition  and  character  of  John  Brown,  on  Sunday 
evening,  and  invited  all  people  to  come.  The  Repub 
lican  Committee,  the  Abolitionist  Committee,  sent  him 
word  that  it  was  premature  and  not  advisable.  He 
replied,  —  "I  did  not  send  to  you  for  advice,  but  to 
announce  that  I  am  to  speak."  The  hall  was  filled  at 
an  early  hour  by  people  of  all  parties,  and  his  earnest 
eulogy  of  the  hero  was  heard  by  all  respectfully,  by 
many  with  a  sympathy  that  surprised  themselves. 

It  was  said  of  Plotinus  that  he  was  ashamed  of  his 
body,  and  'tis  very  likely  he  had  good  reason  for  it,  — 
that  his  body  was  a  bad  servant,  and  he  had  not  skill  in 
dealing  with  the  material  world,  as  happens  often  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  15 

men  of  abstract  intellect.  But  Mr.  Thoreau  was 
equipped  with  a  most  adapted  and  serviceable  body. 
He  was  of  short  stature,  firmly  built,  of  light  com 
plexion,  with  strong,  serious  blue  eyes,  and  a  grave 
aspect,  —  his  face  covered  in  the  late  years  with  a  be 
coming  beard.  His  senses  were  acute,  his  frame  well- 
knit  and  hardy,  his  hands  strong  and  skilful  in  the  use 
of  tools.  And  there  was  a  wonderful  fitness  of  body 
and  mind.  He  could  pace  sixteen  rods  more  accurately 
than  another  man  could  measure  them  with  rod  and 
chain.  He  could  find  his  path  in  the  woods  at  night, 
he  said,  better  by  his  feet  than  his  eyes.  He  could  esti 
mate  the  measure  of  a  tree  veiy  well  by  his  eyes  ;  he 
could  estimate  the  weight  of  a  calf  or  a  pig,  like  a  dealer. 
From  a  box  containing  a  bushel  or  more  of  loose  pen 
cils,  he  could  take  up  with  his  hands  fast  enough  just  a 
dozen  pencils  at  every  grasp.  He  was  a  good  swimmer, 
runner,  skater,  boatman,  and  would  probably  outwalk 
most  countrymen  in  a  day's  journey.  And  the  relation 
of  body  to  mind  was  still  finer  than  we  have  indicated. 
He  said  he  wanted  every  stride  his  legs  made.  The 
length  of  his  walk  uniformly  made  the  length  of  his 
writing.  If  shut  up  in  the  house,  he  did  not  write  at  all. 
He  had  a  strong  common  sense,  like  that  which  Rose 
Flammock,  the  weaver's  daughter,  in  Scott's  romance, 
commends  in  her  father,  as  resembling  a  yardstick, 
which,  whilst  it  measures  dowlas  and  diaper,  can  equally 
well  measure  tapestry  and  cloth  of  gold.  He  had  always 
a  new  resource.  When  I  was  planting  forest-trees,  and 
had  procured  half  a  peck  of  acorns,  he  said  that  only  a 
small  portion  of  them  would  be  sound,  and  .proceeded 


16  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

to  examine  them,  and  select  the  sound  ones.  But  find 
ing  this  took  time,  he  said,  "  I  think,  if  you  put  them  all 
into  water,  the  good  ones  will  sink  ; "  which  experiment 
we  tried  with  success.  He  could  plan  a  garden,  or  a 
house,  or  a  barn  ;  would  have  been  competent  to  lead  a 
-  "  Pacific  Exploring  Expedition  "  ;  could  give  judicious 
counsel  in  the  gravest  private  or  public  affairs. 

He  lived  for  the  day,  not  cumbered  and  mortified  by 
his  memory.  If  he  brought  you  yesterday  a  new  propo 
sition,  he  would  bring  you  to-day  another  not  less  revo 
lutionary.  A  very  industrious  man,  and  setting,  like 
all  highly  organized  men,  a  high  value  on  his  time,  he 
(Seemed  the  only  man  of  leisure  in  town,  always  ready 
|  for  any  excursion  that  promised  well,  or  for  conversation 
,'  prolonged  into  late  hours.  His  trenchant  sense  was 
never  stopped  by  his  rules  of  daily  prudence,  but  was 
always  up  to  the  new  occasion.  He  liked  and  used  the 
simplest  food,  yet,  when  some  one  urged  a  vegetable  diet, 
Thoreau  thought  all  diets  a  very  small  matter,  saying 
that  "  the  man  who  shoots  the  buffalo  lives  better  than 
the  man  who  boards  at  the  Graham  House."  He  said, 
—  "  You  can  sleep  near  the  railroad,  and  never  be  dis 
turbed  :  Nature  knows  very  well  what  sounds  are  worth 
attending  to,  and  has  made  up  her  mind  not  to  hear  the 
railroad-whistle.  But  things  respect  the  devout  mind, 
and  a  mental  ecstasy  was  never  interrupted."  He  noted, 
what  repeatedly  befell  him,  that,  after  receiving  from  a 
distance  a  rare  plant,  he  would  presently  find  the  same 
in  his  own  haunts.  And  those  pieces  of  luck  which 
happen  only  to  good  players  happened  to  him.  One 
day,  walking  with  a  stranger,  who  inquired  where  In 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  17 

dian  arrow-heads  could  be  found,  lie  replied,  "  Every 
where,"  and,  stooping  forward,  picked  one  on  the  instant 
from  the  ground.  At  Mount  Washington,  in  Tucker- 
man's  Ravine,  Thoreau  had  a  bad  fall,  and  sprained  his 
foot.  As  he  was  in  the  act  of  getting  up  from  his  fall, 
he  saw  for  the  first  time  the  leaves  of  the  Arnica 
mollis. 

His  robust  common  sense,  armed  with  stout  hands, 
keen  perceptions,  and  strong  will,  cannot  yet  account 
for  the  superiority  Avhich  shone  in  his  simple  and  hid 
den  life.     I  must  add  the  cardinal  fact,  that  there  was 
an  excellent  wisdom  in  him,  proper  to  a  rare  class  of  - 
men,  which  showed  him  the  material  world  as  a  means 
and  symbol.     This  discovery,  which   sometimes  yields 
to  poets  a  certain  casual  and  interrupted  light,  serving 
for  the  ornament  of  their  writing,  was  in  him  an   un 
sleeping  insight ;  and  whatever  faults  or  obstructions 
of  temperament  might  cloud  it,  he  was  not  disobedient 
to  the  heavenly  vision.     In  his  youth,  he  said,  one  day, 
"  The  other  world  is  all  my  art :  my  pencils  will  draw 
no  other ;  my  jack-knife  will  cut  nothing  else  ;  I  do  not 
use  it  a.s  a  means."    This  was  the  muse  and  genius  that 
ruled    his    opinions,    conversation,    studies,    work,    and 
course  of  life.     This  made  him  a  searching  judge  of 
men.     At  first  glance  he  measured  his  companion,  and,N 
though  insensible  to  some  fine  traits  of  culture,  could- 
very  well  report   his   weight  and   calibre.      And  this, 
made  the  impression  of  genius  which  his  conversation! 
often  gave. 

He  understood  the  matter  in  hand  at  a  glance,  and 
saw  the  limitations  and   poverty  of   those   he   talked 
2 


18  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

with,  so  that  nothing  seemed  concealed  from  such  ter 
rible  eyes.  I  have  repeatedly  known  young  men  of 
sensibility  converted  in  a  moment  to  the  belief  that  this 
was  the  man  they  were  in  search  of,  the  man  of  men, 
who  could  tell  them  all  they  should  do.  His  own  deal 
ing  with  them  was  never  affectionate,  but  superior, 
didactic,  —  scorning  their  petty  ways,  —  very  slowly 
conceding,  or  not  conceding  at  all,  the  promise  of  his 
society  at  their  houses,  or  even  at  his  own.  "  Would 
he  not  walk  with  them  ?  "  "  He  did  not  know.  There 
was  nothing  so  important  to  him  as  his  walk  ;  he  had 
no  walks  to  throw  away  on  company."  Visits  were 
offered  him  from  respectful  parties,  but  he  declined 
them.  Admiring  friends  offered  to  carry  him  at  their 
own  cost  to  the  Yellow-Stone  River,  —  to  the  West 
Indies,  —  to  South  America.  But  though  nothing  could 
be  more  grave  or  considered  than  his  refusals,  they 
remind  one  in  quite  new  relations  of  that  fop  Brum- 
mel's  reply  to  the  gentleman  who  offered  him  his  car 
riage  in  a  shower,  "  But  where  will  you  ride,  then  ?  "  — 
and  what  accusing  silences,  and  what  searching  and 
irresistible  speeches,  battering  down  all  defences,  his 
companions  can  remember! 

Mr.  Thoreau  dedicated  his  genius  with  such  entire 
love  to  the  fields,  hills,  and  waters  of  his  native  town, 
that  he  made  them  known  and  interesting  to  all  reading 
Americans,  and  to  people  over  the  sea.  The  river  on 
whose  banks  he  was  born  and  died  he  knew  from  its 
springs  to  its  confluence  with  the  Merrimack.  He  had 
made  summer  and  winter  observations  on  it  for  many 
years,  and  at  every  hour  of  the  day  and  the  night. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  19 

The  result  of  the  recent  survey  of  the  Water  Com 
missioners  appointed  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts  he 
had  reached  by  his  private  experiments,  several  years 
earlier.  Every  fact  which  occurs  in  the  bed,  on  the 
banks,  or  in  the  air  over  it ;  the  fishes,  and  their  spawn 
ing  and  nests,  their  manners,  their  food  ;  the  shad-flics 
which  fill  the  air  on  a  certain  evening  once  a  year,  and 
which  are  snapped  at  by  the  fishes  so  ravenously  that 
many  of  these  die  of  repletion  ;  the  conical  heaps  of 
small  stones  on  the  river-shallows,  one  of  which  heaps 
will  sometimes  overfill  a  cart,  —  these  heaps  the  huge 
nests  of  small  fishes ;  the  birds  which  frequent  the 
stream,  heron,  duck,  sheldrake,  loon,  osprey ;  the  snake, 
musk-rat,  otter,  woodchuck,  and  fox,  on  the  banks  ;  the 
turtle,  frog,  hyla,  and  cricket,  which  make  the  banks 
vocal,  —  were  all  known  to  him,  and,  as  it  were,  towns 
men  and  fellow-creatures  ;  so  that  he  felt  an  absurdity 
or  violence  in  any  narrative  of  one  of  these  by  itself 
apart,  and  still  more  of  its  dimensions  on  an  inch-rule, 
or  in  the  exhibition  of  its  skeleton,  or  the  specimen  of 
a  squirrel  or  a  bird  in  brandy.  He  liked  to  speak  of 
the  manners  of  the  river,  as  itself  a  lawful  creature, 
yet  with  exactness,  and  always  to  an  observed  fact. 
As  he  knew  the  river,  so  the  ponds  in  this  region. 

One  of  the  weapons  he  used,  more  important  than 
microscope  or  alcohol-receiver  to  other  investigators, 
was  a  whim  which  grew  on  him  by  indulgence,  yet 
appeared  in  gravest  statement,  namely,  of  extolling  his 
own  town  and  neighborhood  as  the  most  favored  centre 
for  natural  observation.  He  remarked  that  the  Flora 
of  Massachusetts  embraced  almost  all  the  important 


20  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

plants  of  America,  —  most  of  the  oaks,  most  of  the 
willows,  the  best  pines,  the  ash,  the  maple,  the  beech, 
the  nuts.  He  returned  Kane's  "  Arctic  Voyage  "  to  a 
friend  of  whom  he  had  borrowed  it,  with  the  remark, 
that  "  most  of  the  phenomena  noted  might  be  observed 
in  Concord."  He  seemed  a  little  envious  of  the  Pole, 
for  the  coincident  sunrise  and  sunset,  or  five  minutes' 
day  after  six  months :  a  splendid  fact,  which  Annurs- 
nuc  had  never  afforded  him.  He  found  red  snow  in 
one  of  his  walks,  and  told  me  that  he  expected  to  find 
yet  the  Victoria  regia  in  Concord.  He  was  the  attor 
ney  of  the  indigenous  plants,  and  owned  to  a  preference 
of  the  weeds  to  the  imported  plants,  as  of  the  Indian 
to  the  civilized  man,  —  and  noticed,  with  pleasure,  that 
the  willow  bean-poles  of  his  neighbor  had  grown  more 
than  his  beans.  "  See  these  weeds,"  he  said,  "  which 
have  been  hoed  at  by  a  million  farmers  all  spring  and 
summer,  and  yet  have  prevailed,  and  just  now  come 
out  triumphant  over  all  lanes,  pastures,  fields,  and  gar 
dens,  such  is  their  vigor.  We  have  insulted  them  wdth 
low  names,  too,  —  as  Pigweed,  Wormwood,  Chickweed, 
Shad-Blossom."  He  says,  "They  have  brave  names, 
too,  —  Ambrosia,  Stellaria,  Amelanchia,  Amaranth, 
etc." 

I  think  his  fancy  for  referring  everything  to  the  me 
ridian  of  Concord  did  not  grow  out  of  any  ignorance  or 
depreciation  of  other  longitudes  or  latitudes,  but  was 
rather  a  playful  expression  of  his  conviction  of  the 
indiiferency  of  all  places,  and  that  the  best  place  for 
each  is  where  he  stands.  He  expressed  it  once  in  this 
wise  :  —  "I  think  nothing  is  to  be  hoped  from  you,  if 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  21 

this  bit  of  mould  under  your  feet  is  not  sweeter  to  you 
to  eat  than  any  other  in  this  world,  or  in  any  world." 

The  other  weapon  with  which  he  conquered  all  ob 
stacles  in  science  was  patience.  He  knew  how  to  sit 
immovable,  a  part  of  the  rock  he  rested  on,  until  the 
bird,  the  reptile,  the  fish,  which  had  retired  from  him, 
should  come  back,  and  resume  its  habits,  nay,  moved  by 
curiosity,  should  come  to  him  and  watch  him. 

It  was  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  walk  with  him. 
He  knew  the  country  like  a  fox  or  a  bird,  and  passed 
through  it  as  freely  by  paths  of  his  own.  He  knew 
every  track  in  the  snow  or  on  the  ground,  and  what 
creature  had  taken  this  path  before  him.  One  must 
submit  abjectly  to  such  a  guide,  and  the  reward  was 
great.  Under  his  arm  he  carried  an  old  music-book 
to  press  plants ;  in  his  pocket,  his  diary  and  pencil,  a 
spy-glass  for  birds,  microscope,  jack-knife,  and  twine- 
He  wore  straw  hat,  stout  shoes,  strong  gray  trousers 
to  brave  shrub-oaks  and  smilax,  and  to  climb  a  tre& 
for  a  hawk's  or  a  squirrel's  nest.  Pie  waded  into  the 
pool  for  the  water-plants,  and  his  strong  legs  were  no 
insignificant  part  of  his  armor.  On  the  day  I  speak  of 
he  looked  for  the  Menyanthes,  detected  it  across  the 
wide  pool,  and,  on  examination  of  the  florets,  decided 
that  it  had  been  in  flower  five  days.  He  drew  out  of 
his  breast-pocket  his  diary,  and  read  the  names  of  all 
the  plants  that  should  bloom  on  this  day,  whereof  he 
kept  account  as  a  banker  when  his  notes  fall  due. 
The  Cypripedium  not  due  till  to-morrow.  He  thought, 
that,  if  waked  up  from  a  trance,  in  this  swamp,  he 
could  tell  by  the  plants  what  time  of  the  year  it  was 


22  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

within  two  days.  The  redstart  was  flying  about,  and 
presently  the  fine  grosbeaks,  whose  brilliant  scarlet 
makes  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye,  and  whose  fine 
clear  note  Thoreau  compared  to  that  of  a  tanager  which 
has  got  rid  of  its  hoarseness.  Presently  he  heard  a 
note  which  he  called  that  of  the  night-warbler,  a  bird 
he  had  never  identified,  had  been  in  search  of  twelve 
years,  which  always,  when  he  saw  it,  was  in  the  act  of 
diving  down  into  a  tree  or  bush,  and  which  it  was  vain 
to  seek  ;  the  only  bird  that  sings  indifferently  by  night 
and  by  day.  I  told  him  he  must  beware  of  finding  and 
booking  it,  lest  life  should  have  nothing  more  to  show 
him.  He  said,  "  What  you  seek  in  vain  for,  half  your 
life,  one  day  you  come  full  upon  all  the  family  at  din 
ner.  You  seek  it  like  a  dream,  and  as  soon  as  you  find 
it  you  become  its  prey." 

His  interest  in  the  flower  or  the  bird  lay  very  deep 
in  his  mind,  was  connected  with  Nature,  —  and  the 
meaning  of  Nature  was  never  attempted  to  be  defined 
by  him.  He  would  not  offer  a  memoir  of  his  observa 
tions  to  the  Natural  History  Society.  "  Why  should  I  ? 
To  detach  the  description  from  its  connections  in  my 
mind  would  make  it  no  longer  true  or  valuable  to  me  : 
and  they  do  not  wish  what  belongs  to  it."  His  power 
of  observation  seemed  to  indicate  additional  senses.  He 
saw  as  with  microscope,  heard  as  with  ear-trumpet,  and 
his  memory  was  a  photographic  register  of  all  he  saw 
and  heard.  And  yet  none  knew  better  than  he  that  it 
is  not  the  fact  that  imports,  but  the  impression  or  effect 
of  the  fact  on  your  mind.  Every  fact  lay  in  glory  in 
his  mind,  a  type  of  the  order  and  beauty  of  the  whole. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  23 

His  determination  on  Natural  History  was  organic. 
He  confessed  that  he  sometimes  felt  like  a  hound  or  a 
panther,  and,  if  born  among  Indians,  would  have  been 
a  fell  hunter.  But,  restrained  by  his  Massachusetts 
culture,  he  played  out  the  game  in  this  mild  form  of 
botany  and  ichthyology.  His  intimacy  with  animals 
suggested  what  Thomas  Fuller  records  of  Butler  the 
apiologist,  that  "  either  he  had  told  the  bees  things  or 
the  bees  had  told  him."  Snakes  coiled  round  his  leg ; 
the  fishes  swam  into  his  hand,  and  he  took  them  out  of 
the  water  ;  he  pulled  the  woodchuck  out  of  its  hole  by 
the  tail,  and  took  the  foxes  under  his  protection  from 
the  hunters.  Our  naturalist  had  perfect  magnanimity  ; 
he  had  no  secrets :  he  would  carry  you  to  the  heron's 
haunt,  or  even  to  his  most  prized  botanical  swamp,  — 
possibly  knowing  that  you  could  never  find  it  again,  yet 
willing  to  take  his  risks. 

No  college  ever  offered  him  a  diploma,  or  a  profes 
sor's  chair ;  no  academy  made  him  its  corresponding 
secretary,  its  discoverer,  or  even  its  member.  Whether 
these  learned  bodies  feared  the  satire  of  his  presence. 
Yet  so  much  knowledge  of  Nature's  secret  and  genius 
few  others  possessed,  none  in  a  more  large  and  religious 
synthesis.  For  not  a  particle  of  respect  had  he  to  the 
opinions  of  any  man  or  body  of  men,  but  homage  solely 
to  the  truth  itself;  and  as  he  discovered  everywhere 
among  doctors  some  leaning  of  courtesy,  it  discredited 
them.  He  grew  to  be  revered  and  admired  by  his 
townsmen,  who  had  at  first  known  him  only  as  an 
oddity.  The  farmers  who  employed  him  as  a  surveyor 
soon  discovered  his  rare  accuracy  and  skill,  his  knowl- 


24  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

edge  of  their  lands,  of  trees,  of  birds,  of  Indian  remains 
and  the  like,  which  enabled  him  to  tell  every  farmei 
more  than  he  knew  before  of  his  own  farm  ;  so  that  ho 
began  to  feel  as  if  Mr.  Thoreau  had  better  rights  in 
his  land  than  he.  They  felt,  too,  the  superiority 
of  character  which  addressed  all  men  with  a  native 
authority. 

Indian  relics  abound  in  Concord, —  arrow-heads,  stone 
chisels,  pestles,  and  fragments  of  pottery ;  and  on  the 
river-bank,  large  heaps  of  clam-shells  and  ashes  mark 
spots  which  the  savages  frequented.  These,  and  every 
circumstance  touching  the  Indian,  were  important  in  his 
eyes.  His  visits  to  Maine  were  chiefly  for  love  of  the 
Indian.  He  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  manu 
facture  of  the  bark-canoe,  as  well  as  of  trying  his  hand 
in  its  management  on  the  rapids.  He  was  inquisitive 
about  the  making  of  the  stone  arrow-head,  and  in  his 
last  days  charged  a  youth  setting  out  for  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  find  an  Indian  who  could  tell  him  that : 
"  It  was  well  worth  a  visit  to  California  to  learn  it." 
Occasionally,  a  small  party  of  Penobscot  Indians  would 
visit  Concord,  and  pitch  their  tents  for  a  few  weeks  in 
summer  on  the  river-bank.  He  failed  not  to  make 
acquaintance  with  the  best  of  them  ;  though  he  well 
knew  that  asking  questions  of  Indians  is  like  catechizing 
beavers  and  rabbits.  In  his  last  visit  to  Maine  he 
had  great  satisfaction  from  Joseph  Polis,  an  intelligent 
Indian  of  Oldtown,  who  was  his  guide  for  some  weeks. 

He  was  equally  interested  in  every  natural  fact.  The 
depth  of  his  perception  found  likeness  of  law  through 
out  Nature,  and  I  know  not  any  genius  who  so  swiftly 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  25 

inferred  universal  law  from  the  single  fact.  He  was  no 
pedant  of  a  department.  His  eye  was  open  to  beauty, 
and  his  ear  to  music.  He  found  these,  not  in  rare  con 
ditions,  but  wheresoever  he  went.  He  thought  the  best 
of  music  was  in  single  strains ;  and  he  found  poetic  sug 
gestion  in  the  humming  of  the  telegraph-wire. 

His  poetry  might  be  bad  or  good;  he  no  doubt  wanted 
a  lyric  facility  and  technical  skill ;  but  he  had  the  source 
of  poetry  in  his  spiritual  perception.  He  was  a  good 
reader  and  critic,  and  his  judgment  on  poetry  was  to  the 
ground  of  it.  He  could  not  be  deceived  as  to  the  pres 
ence  or  absence  of  the  poetic  element  in  any  compo 
sition,  and  his  thirst  for  this  made  him  negligent  and 
perhaps  scornful  of  superficial  graces.  lie  would  pass 
by  many  delicate  rhythms,  but  he  would  have  detected 
every  live  stanza  or  line  in  a  volume,  and  knew  very 
well  where  to  find  an  equal  poetic  charm  in  prose.  lie 
was  so  enamored  of  the  spiritual  beauty  that  he  held  all 
actual  written  poems  in  very  light  esteem  in  the  com 
parison.  He  admired  JEschylus  and  Pindar ;  but,  when 
some  one  was  commending  them,  he  said  that  "  JEschy- 
lus  and  the  Greeks,  in  describing  Apollo  and  Orpheus, 
had  given  no  song,  or  no  good  one.  They  ought  not  to 
have  moved  trees,  but  to  have  chanted  to  the  gods  such 
a  hymn  as  would  have  sung  all  their  old  ideas  out  of 
their  heads,  and  new  ones  in."  His  own  verses  are 
often  rude  and  defective.  The  gold  does  not  yet  run 
pure,  is  drossy  and  crude.  The  thyme  and  marjoram 
are  not  yet  honey.  But  if  he  want  lyric  fineness  and 
technical  merits,  if  he  have  not  the  poetic  temperament, 
he  never  lacks  the  causal  thought,  showing  that  his 


26  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

genius  was  better  than  his  talent.  He  knew  the  worth 
of  the  Imagination  for  the  uplifting  and  consolation  of 
human  life,  and  liked  to  throw  every  thought  into  a 
symbol.  The  fact  you  tell  is  of  no  value,  but  only  the 
impression.  For  this  reason  his  presence  was  poetic, 
always  piqued  the  curiosity  to  know  more  deeply  the 
secrets  of  his  mind.  He  had  many  reserves,  an  umvill- 
ingness  to  exhibit  to  profane  eyes  what  was  still  sacred 
in  his  own,  and  knew  well  how  to  throw  a  poetic 
veil  over  his  experience.  All  readers  of  "Walden" 
will  remember  his  mythical  record  of  his  disappoint 
ments  :  — 

"  I  long  ago  lost  a  hound,  a  bay  horse,  and  a  turtle 
dove,  and  am  still  on  their  trail.  Many  are  the  travel 
lers  I  have  spoken  concerning  them,  describing  their 
tracks,  and  what  calls  they  answered  to.  I  have  met 
one  or  two  who  had  heard  the  hound,  and  the  tramp  of 
the  horse,  and  even  seen  the  dove  disappear  behind  a 
cloud ;  and  they  seemed  as  anxious  to  recover  them  as 
if  they  had  lost  them  themselves."  * 

His  riddles  were  worth  the  reading,  and  1  confide, 
that,  if  at  any  time  I  do  not  understand  the  expression, 
it  is  yet  just.      Such  was  the  wealth  of  his  truth  that  it 
^'^as  not  worth  his  while  to  use  words  in  vain.      His 
<c'"poem  entitled  "  Sympathy"  reveals  the  tenderness  un- 
1   der  that  triple  steel  of  stoicism,  and  the  intellectual  sub- 
tilty  it  could  animate.     His  classic  poem  on  "  Smoke  " 
suggests   Simonides,  but  is  better  than  any  poem  of 
Simonides.     His  biography  is  in  his  verses.     His  habit 
ual  thought  makes  all  his  poetry  a  hymn  to  the  Cause 
*  "  Walden,"  p.  20. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  27 

of  causes,  the    Spirit  which  vivifies  and  controls  his 
own. 

"  I  hearing  get,  who  had  but  ears, 
And  sight,  who  had  but  eyes  before  ; 
I  moments  live,  who  lived  but  years, 
And  truth  discern,  who  knew  but  learning's  lore." 

And  still  more  in  these  religious  lines  :  — 

"  Now  chiefly  is  my  natal  hour, 
And  only  now  my  prime  of  life ; 
I  will  not  doubt  the  love  untold, 
Which  not  my  worth  or  want  hath  bought, 
Which  wooed  me  young,  and  wooes  me  old, 
And  to  this  evening  hath  me  brought." 


Whilst  he  used  in  his  writings  a  certain  petulance  of 
remark  in  reference  to  churches  or  churchmen,  he  was  a 
person  of  a  rare,  tender,  and  absolute  religion,  a  person 
incapable  of  any  profanation,  by  act  or  by  thought.  Of 
course,  the  same  isolation  which  belonged  to  his  original 
thinking  and  living  detached  him  from  the  social  relig 
ious  forms.  This  is  neither  to  be  censured  nor  regretted. 
Aristotle  long  ago  explained  it,  when  he  said,  "  One\ 
who  surpasses  his  fellow-citizens  in  virtue  is  no  longer  i 
a  part  of  the  city.  Their  law  is  not  for  him,  since  he 
is  a  law  to  himself." 

Thoreau  was  sincerity  itself,  and  might  fortify  the 
convictions  of  prophets  in  the  ethical  laws  by  his  holy 
living.  It  was  an  affirmative  experience  which  refused 
to  be  set  aside.  A  truth-speaker  he,  capable  of  the 
most  deep  and  strict  conversation  ;  a  physician  to  the 


28  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

wounds  of  any  soul ;  a  friend,  knowing  not  only  the 
secret  of  friendship,  but  almost  worshipped  by  those 

,'lfew  persons  who  resorted  to  him  as  their  confessor  and 
prophet,  and  knew  the  deep  value  of  his  mind  and  great 
heart.  He  thought  that  without  religion  or  devotion  of 
some  kind  nothing  great  was  ever  accomplished :  and  he 
thought  that  the  bigoted  sectarian  had  better  bear  this 
in  mind. 

His  virtues,  of  course,  sometimes  ran  into  extremes. 
It  was  easy  to  trace  to  the  inexorable  demand  on  all  for 
exact  truth  that  austerity  which  made  this  willing  her 
mit  more  solitary  even  than  he  wished.  Himself  of  a 

C^perfect  probity,  he  required  not  less  of  others.  He  had 
a  disgust  at  crime,  and  no  worldly  success  could  cover  it. 
He  detected  paltering  as  readily  in  dignified  and  pros 
perous  persons  as  in  beggars,  and  with  equal  scorn. 
Such  dangerous  frankness  was  in  his  dealing  that  his 
admirers  called  him  "  that  terrible  Thoreau,"  as  if  he 
spoke  when  silent,  and  was  still  present  when  he  had 
departed.  I  think  the  severity  of  his  ideal  interfered  to 
deprive  him  of  a  healthy  sufficiency  of  human  society. 
The  habit  of  a  realist  to  find  things  the  reverse  of 
their  appeanflice  inclined  him  to  put  every  statement  in 
a  paradox.  .4  certain  habit  of  antagonism  defaced  his 
earlier  writings,  —  a  trick  of  rhetoric  not  quite  out 
grown  in  his  later,  of  substituting  for  the  obvious  word 
and  thought  its  diametrical  opposite.  He  praised  wild 
mountains  and  winter  forests  for  their  domestic  air,  in 
Bnow  and  ice  he  would  find  sultriness,  and  commended 
the  wilderness  for  resembling  Rome  and  Paris.  "It 
was  so  dry,  that  ydu  might  call  it  wet." 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  29 

The  tendency  to  magnify  the  moment,  to  read  all  the 
laws  of  Nature  in  the  one  object  or  one  combination 
under  your  eye,  is  of  course  comic  to  those  who  do  not 
share  the  philosopher's  perception  of  identity.  To  him 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  size.  The  pond  was  a  small 
ocean ;  the  Atlantic,  a  large  Walden  Pond.  He  re 
ferred  every  minute  fact  to  cosmical  laws.  Though  he 
meant  to  be  just,  he  seemed  haunted  by  a  certair 
chronic  assumption  that  the  science  of  the  day  protend 
ed  completeness,  and  he  had  just  found  out  thai  the 
savans  had  neglected  to  discriminate  a  particular  tfi/cani- 
cal  variety,  had  failed  to  describe  the  seeds  or  oi/unt  the 
sepals.  "  That  is  to  say,"  we  replied,  "  the  blockhead? 
were  not  born  in  Concord  ;  but  who  said  they  were  <* 
It  was  their  unspeakable  misfortune  to  be  born  in  Lon 
don,  or  Paris,  or  Rome  ;  but,  poor  fellows,  they  di« 
what  they  could,  considering  that  they  never  saw  Bate- 
man's  Pond,  or  Nine- Acre  Corner,  or  Becky-Stow's 
Swamp.  Besides,  what  were  you  sent  into  the  world 
for,  but  to  add  this  observation  ?  " 

Had  his  genius  been  only  contemplative,  he  had  been 
fitted  to  his  life,  but  with  his  energy  and  practical  abil 
ity  he  seemed  born  for  great  enterprise  and  for  com 
mand  ;  and  I  so  much  regret  the  loss  of  his  rare  pow 
ers  of  action,  that  I  cannot  help  counting  it  a  fault  in 
him  that  he  had  no  ambition.  Wanting  this,  instead  of 
engineering  for  all  America,  he  wras  the  captain  of  a 
huckleberry  party.  Pounding  beans  is  good  to  the  end 
of  pounding  empires  one  of  these  days, ;  but  if,  at  the 
end  of  years,  it  is  still  only  beans  ! 

But  these  foibles,  real  or  apparent,  were  fast  vanish- 


30  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

ing  in  the  incessant  growth  of  a  spirit  so  robust  and 
wise,  and  which  effaced  its  defeats  with  new  triumphs. 
His  study  of  Nature  was  a  perpetual  ornament  to  him, 
and  inspired  his  friends  with  curiosity  to  see  the  world 
through  his  eyes,  and  to  hear  his  adventures.  They 
possessed  every  kind  of  interest. 

He  had  many  elegances  of  his  own,  whilst  he  scoffed 
at  conventional  elegance.  Thus,  he  could  not  bear  to 
hear  the  sound  of  his  own  steps,  the  grit  of  gravel ;  and 
therefore  never  willingly  walked  in  the  road,  but  in  the 
grass,  on  mountains  and  in  woods.  His  senses  were 
acute,  and  he  remarked  that  by  night  every  dwelling- 
house  gives  out  bad  air,  like  a  slaughter-house.  He 
liked  the  pure  fragrance  of  melilot.  He  honored  cer 
tain  plants  with  special  regard,  and,  over  all,  the  pond- 
lily,  —  then,  the  gentian,  and  the  Mikania  scandens,  and 
"  life-everlasting,"  and  a  bass-tree  which  he  visited 
every  year  when  it  bloomed,  in  the  middle  of  July.  He 
thought  the  scent  a  more  oracular  inquisition  than  the 
sight,  —  more  oracular  and  trustworthy.  The  scent,  of 
course,  reveals  what  is  concealed  from  the  other  senses. 
By  it  he  detected  earth iness.  He  delighted  in  echoes, 
and  said  they  were  almost  the  only  kind  of  kindred 
voices  that  he  heard.  He  loved  Nature  so  well,  was  so 
happy  in  her  solitude,  that  he  became  very  jealous  of 
cities,  and  the  sad  work  which  their  refinements  and 
artifices  made  with  man  and  his  dwelling.  The  axe 
was  always  destroying  his  forest.  "  Thank  God,"  he 
said,  "  they  cannot  cut  down  the  clouds  !  "  "  All  kinds 
of  figures  are  drawn  on  the  blue  ground  with  this 
fibrous  white  paint." 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  31 

I  subjoin  a  few  sentences  taken  from  his  unpublished 
manuscripts,  not  only  as  records  of  his  thought  and  feel 
ing,  but  for  their  power  of  description  and  literary 
excellence. 

"  Some  circumstantial  evidence  is  very  strong,  as  when 
you  find  a  trout  in  the  milk." 

"  The  chub  is  a  soft  fish,  and  tastes  like  boiled  brown 
paper  salted." 

"  The  youth  gets  together  his  materials  to  build  a 
bridge  to  the  moon,  or,  perchance,  a  palace  or  temple 
on  the  earth,  and  at  length  the  middle-aged  man  con 
cludes  to  built  a  wood-shed  with  them." 

"  The  locust  z-ing." 

"  Devil's-needles  zigzagging  along  the  Nut-Meadow 
brook." 

"  Sugar  is  not  so  sweet  to  the  palate  as  sound  to  the 
healthy  ear." 

"  I  put  on  some  hemlock-boughs,  and  the  rich  salt 
crackling  of  their  leaves  was  like  mustard  to  the  ear, 
the  crackling  of  uncountable  regiments.  Dead  trees 
love  the  fire." 

"  The  bluebird  carries  the  sky  on  his  back." 

"  The  tanager  flies  through  the  green  foliage  as  if  it 
would  ignite  the  leaves." 

"  If  I  wish  for  a  horse-hair  for  my  compass-sight,  I 
must  go  to  the  stable ;  but  the  hair-bird,  with  her  sharp 
eyes,  goes  to  the  road." 

"  Immortal  water,  alive  even  to  the  superficies." 

"  Fire  is  the  most  tolerable  third  party." 

"  Nature  made  ferns  for  pure  leaves,  to  show  what 
she  could  do  in  that  line." 


32  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

"  No  tree  has  so  fair  a  bole  and  so  handsome  an  in 
step  as  the  beech." 

"  How  did  these  beautiful  rainbow-tints  get  into  the 
shell  of  the  fresh-water  clam,  buried  in  the  mud  at  the 
bottom  of  our  dark  river  ?  " 

"  Hard  are  the  times  when  the  infant's  shoes  are 
second-foot." 

"  We  are  strictly  confined  to  our  men  to  whom  we 
give  liberty." 

"  Nothing  is  so  much  to  be  feared  as  fear.  Atheism 
may  comparatively  be  popular  with  God  himself." 

"  Of  what  significance  the  things  you  can  forget  ?  A 
little  thought  is  sexton  to  all  the  world." 

"  How  can  we  expect  a  harvest  of  thought  who  have 
not  had  a  seed-time  of  character  ?  " 

"  Only  he  can  be  trusted  with  gifts  who  can  present  a 
face  of  bronze  to  expectations." 

"  I  ask  to  be  melted.  You  can  only  ask  of  the  metals 
that  they  be  tender  to  the  fire  that  melts  them.  To 
nought  else  can  they  be  tender." 

There  is  a  flower  known  to  botanists,  one  of  the  same 
genus  with  our  summer  plant  called  "Life-Everlasting," 
a  Gnaphalium  like  that,  which  grows  on  the  most  inac 
cessible  cliffs  of  the  Tyrolese  mountains,  where  the 
chamois  dare  hardly  venture,  and  which  the  hunter, 
tempted  by  its  beauty,  and  by  his  love,  (for  it  is  im 
mensely  valued  by  the  Swiss  maidens,)  climbs  the  cliffs 
to  gather,  and  is  sometimes  found  dead  at  the  foot,  with 
the  flower  in  his  hand.  It  is  called  by  botanists  the 
Gnaphalium  leontopodium,  but  by  the  Swiss  Edelweisse^ 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH.  33 

which  signifies  Noble  Purity.  Thoreau  seemed  to  me 
living  in  the  hope  to  gather  this  plant,  which  belonged 
to  him  of  right.  The  scale  on  which  his  studies  pro 
ceeded  was  so  large  as  to  require  longevity,  and  we 
were  the  less  prepared  for  his  sudden  disappearance. 
The  country  knows  not  yet,  or  in  the  least  part,  how 
great  a  son  it  has  lost.  It  seems  an  injury  that  he 
should  leave  in  the  midst  his  broken  task,  which  none 
else  can  finish,  —  a  kind  of  indignity  to  so  noble  a  soul, 
that  it  should  depart  out  of  Nature  before  yet  he  has 
been  really  shown  to  his  peers  for  what  he  is.  But  he, 
at  least,  is  content.  His  soul  was  made  for  the  noblest 
society  ;  he  had  in  a  short  life  exhausted  the  capabili 
ties  of  this  world  ;  wherever  there  is  knowledge,  wher 
ever  there  is  virtue,  wherever  there  is  beauty,  he  will 
find  a  home. 


EXCURSIONS. 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS* 

[1842.] 

BOOKS  of  natural  history  make  the  most 
cheerful  winter  reading.  I  read  in  Audubon 
with  a  thrill  of  delight,  when  the  snow  covers 
the  ground,  of  the  magnolia,  and  the  Florida 
keys,  and  their  warm  sea-breezes  ;  of  the  fence- 
rail,  and  the  cotton-tree,  and  the  migrations  of 
the  rice-bird  ;  of  the  breaking  up  of  winter  in 
Labrador,  and  the  melting  of  the  snow  on  the 
forks  of  the  Missouri ;  and  owe  an  accession  of 
health  to  these  reminiscences  of  luxuriant  nature. 

Within  the  circuit  of  this  plodding  life, 

There  enter  moments  of  an  azure  hue, 

Untarnished  fair  as  is  the  violet 

Or  anemone,  when  the  spring  strews  them 

By  some  meandering  rivulet,  which  make 

The  best  philosophy  untrue  that  aims 

But  to  console  man  for  his  grievances. 

I  have  remembered  when  the  winter  came, 

High  in  my  chamber  in  the  frosty  nights, 

When  in  the  still  light  of  the  cheerful  moon, 

*  Reports  —  on  the  Fishes,  Reptiles,  and  Birds ;  the  Herbaceous  Plants 
and  Quadrupeds ;  the  Insects  Injurious  to  Vegetation  ;  and  the  Inver 
tebrate  Animals  of  Massachusetts.  Published  agreeably  to  an  Order 
of  the  Legislature,  by  tbe  Commissioners  on  thy  Zoological  and  Bo 
tanical  Survev  of  the  Stale. 


38        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

On  every  twig  and  rail  and  jutting  spout, 

The  icy  spears  were  adding  to  their  length 

Against  the  arrows  of  the  coming  sun, 

How  in  the  shimmering  noon  of  summer  past 

Some  unrecorded  beam  slanted  across 

The  upland  pastures  where  the  Johnswort  grew ; 

Or  heard,  amid  the  verdure  of  my  mind. 

The  bee's  long  smothered  hum,  on  the  blue  flag 

Loitering  amidst  the  mead ;  or  busy  rill, 

Which  now  through  all  its  course  stands  still  and  dumb 

Its  own  memorial,  —  purling  at  its  play 

Along  the  slopes,  and  through  the  meadows  next, 

Until  its  youthful  sound  was  hushed  at  last 

In  the  staid  current  of  the  lowland  stream ; 

Or  seen  the  furrows  shine  but  late  upturned, 

And  where  the  fieldfare  followed  in  the  rear, 

When  all  the  fields  around  lay  bound  and  hoar 

Beneath  a  thick  integument  of  snow. 

So  by  God's  cheap  economy  made  rich 

To  go  upon  my  winter's  task  again. 

I  am  singularly  refreshed  in  winter  when  I 
hear  of  service-berries,  poke-weed,  juniper.  Is 
not  heaven  made  up  of  these  cheap  summer 
glories  ?  There  is  a  singular  health  in  those 
words,  Labrador  and  East  Main,  which  no  de 
sponding  creed  recognizes.  How  much  more 
than  Federal  are  these  States.  If  there  were  no 
other  vicissitudes  than  the  seasons,  our  interest 
would  never  tire.  Much  more  is  adoing  than 
Congress  wots  of.  What  journal  do  the  per 
simmon  and  the  buckeye  keep,  and  the  sharp- 
shinned  hawk  ?  What  is  transpiring  from  sum- 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        39 

mer  to  winter  in  the  Carolinas,  and  the  Great 
Pine  Forest,  and  the  Valley  of  the  Mohawk  ? 
The  merely  political  aspect  of  the  land  is  never 
very  cheering ;  men  are  degraded  when  consid 
ered  as  the  members  of  a  political  organization. 
On  this  side  all  lands  present  only  the  symptoms 
of  decay.  I  see  but  Bunker  Hill  and  Sing-Sing, 
the  District  of  Columbia  and  Sullivan's  Island, 
with  a  few  avenues  connecting  them.  But  pal 
try  are  they  all  beside  one  blast  of  the  east  or 
the  south  wind  which  blows  over  them. 

In  society  you  will  not  find  health,  but  in 
nature.  Unless  our  feet  at  least  stood  in  the 
midst  of  nature,  all  our  faces  would  be  pale  and 
livid.  Society  is  always  diseased,  and  the  best 
is  the  most  so.  There  is  no  scent  in  it  so  whole 
some  as  that  of  the  pines,  nor  any  fragrance  so 
penetrating  and  restorative  as  the  life-everlasting 
in  high  pastures.  I  would  keep  some  book  of 
natural  history  always  by  me  as  a  sort  of  elixir, 
the  reading  of  which  should  restore  the  tone  of 
the  system.  To  the  sick,  indeed,  nature  is  sick, 
but  to  the  well,  a  fountain  of  health.  To  him 
who  contemplates  a  trait  of  natural  beauty  no 
harm  nor  disappointment  can  come.  The  doc 
trines  of  despair,  of  spiritual  or  political  tyranny 
or  servitude,  were  never  taught  by  such  as  shared 
the  serenity  of  nature.  Surely  good  courage 
will  not  flag  here  on  the  Atlantic  border,  as 


40        NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

long  as  we  are  flanked  by  the  Fur  Countries 
There  is  enough  in  that  sound  to  cheer  one 
under  any  circumstances.  The  spruce,  the  hem 
lock,  and  the  pine  will  not  countenance  despair. 
Methinks  some  creeds  in  vestries  and  churches  j 
do  forget  the  hunter  wrapped  in  furs  by  the 
Great  Slave  Lake,  and  that  the  Esquimaux 
sledges  are  drawn  by  dogs,  and  in  the  twilight 
of  the  northern  night,  the  hunter  does  not  give 
over  to  follow  the  seal  and  walrus  on  the  ice. 
They  are  of  sick  and  diseased  imaginations  who 
would  toll  the  world's  knell  so  soon.  Cannot 
these  sedentary  sects  do  better  than  prepare  the 
shrouds  and  write  the  epitaphs  of  those  other 
busy  living  men  ?  The  practical  faith  of  all  men 
belies  the  preacher's  consolation.  What  is  any 
man's  discourse  to  me,  if  I  am  not  sensible  of 
something  in  it  as  steady  and  cheery  as  the 
creak  of  crickets  ?  In  it  the  woods  must  be  re 
lieved  against  the  sky.  Men  tire  me  when  I  am 
not  constantly  greeted  and  refreshed  as  by  the 
flux  of  sparkling  streams.  Surely  joy  is  the  con 
dition  of  life.  Think  of  the  young  fry  that  leap^ 
in  ponds,  the  myriads  of  insects  ushered  into 
being  on  a  summer  evening,  the  incessant  note 
of  the  hyla  with  which  the  woods  ring  in  the 
spring,  the  nonchalance  of  the  butterfly  carrying 
accident  and  change  painted  in  a  thousand  hues 
upon  its  wings,  or  the  brook  minnow  stoutly 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        4i 

stemming  the  current,  the  lustre  of  whose  scales 
worn  bright  by  the  attrition  is  reflected  upon 
the  bank. 

We  fancy  that  this  din  of  religion,  literature, 
and  philosophy,  which  is  heard  in  pulpits,  lyce- 
ums,  and  parlors,  vibrates  through  the  universe, 
and  is  as  catholic  a  sound  as  the  creaking  of 
the  earth's  axle ;  but  if  a  man  sleep  soundly,  he 
will  forget  it  all  between  sunset  and  dawn.  It 
is  the  three-inch  swing  of  a  pendulum  in  a  cup 
board,  which  the  great  pulse  of  nature  vibrates 
by  and  through  each  instant.  When  we  lift  our 
eyelids  and  open  our  ears,  it  disappears  with 
smoke  and  rattle  like  the  cars  on  a  railroad. 
When  I  detect  a  beauty  in  any  of  the  recesses 
of  nature,  I  am  reminded,  by  the  serene  and 
retired  spirit  in  which  it  requires  to  be  contem 
plated,  of  the  inexpressible  privacy  of  a  life, — 
how  silent  and  unambitious  it  is.  The  beauty 
there  is  in  mosses  must  be  considered  from  the 
holiest,  quietest  nook.  What  an  admirable  train 
ing  is  science  for  the  more  active  warfare  of  life. 
Indeed,  the  unchallenged  bravery,  which  these 
studies  imply,  is  far  more  impressive  than  the 
trumpeted  valor  of  the  warrior.  I  am  pleased 
to  learn  that  Thales  was  up  and  stirring  by 
night  not  unfrequently,  as  his  astronomical  dis 
coveries  prove.  Linnaeus,  setting  out  for  Lap 
land,  surveys  his  ucomb"  and  "spare  shirt," 


42        NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

"  leathern  breeches  "  and  "  gauze  cap  to  keep  off 
gnats,"  with  as  much  complacency  as  Bonaparte 
a  park  of  artillery  for  the  Russian  campaign. 
The  quiet  bravery  of  the  man  is  admirable.  His 
eye  is  to  take  in  fish,  flower,  and  bird,  quadru 
ped  and  biped.  Science  is  always  brave,  for  to 
know,  is  to  know  good  ;  doubt  and  danger  quail 
before  her  eye.  What  the  coward  overlooks  in 
his  hurry,  she  calmly  scrutinizes,  breaking  ground 
like  a  pioneer  for  the  array  of  arts  that  follow  in 
her  train.  But  cowardice  is  unscientific;  for 
there  cannot  be  a  science  of  ignorance.  There 
may  be  a  science  of  bravery,  for  that  advances ; 
but  a  retreat  is  rarely  well  conducted ;  if  it  is, 
then  is  it  an  orderly  advance  in  the  face  of  cir 
cumstances. 

But  to  draw  a  little  nearer  to  our  promised 
topics.  Entomology  extends  the  limits  of  being 
in  a  new  direction,  so  that  I  walk  in  nature  with 
a  sense  of  greater  space  and  freedom.  It  sug 
gests  besides,  that  the  universe  is  not  rough- 
hewn,  but  perfect  in  its  details.  Nature  will 
be.ar  the  closest  inspection  ;  she  invites  us  to  lay 
our  eye  level  with  the  smallest  leaf,  and  take  an 
insect  view  of  its  plain.  She  has  no  interstices ; 
every  part  is  full  of  life.  I  explore,  too,  with 
pleasure,  the  sources  of  the  myriad  sounds  which 
crowd  the  summer  noon,  and  which  seem  the 
very  grain  and  stuff  of  which  eternity  is  made. 


NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        43 

Who  does  not  remember  the  shrill  roll-call  of 
the  harvest  fly  ?  There  were  ears  for  these 
sounds  in  Greece  long  ago,  as  Anacreon's  ode 
wilJ  show. 

"  We  pronounce  thee  happy,  Cicada, 
For  on  the  tops  of  the  trees, 
Drinking  a  little  dew, 
Like  any  king  thou  singest, 
For  thine  are  they  all, 
Whatever  thou  seest  in  the  fields, 
And  whatever  the  woods  bear. 
Thou  art  the  friend  of  the  husbandmen, 
In  no  respect  injuring  any  one  ; 
And  thou  art  honored  among  men, 
Sweet  prophet  of  summer. 
The  Muses  love  thee, 
And  Phoebus  himself  loves  thee, 
And  has  given  thee  a  shrill  song ; 
Age  does  not  wrack  thee, 
Thou  skilful,  earthborn,  song-loving, 
Unsuirering,  bloodless  one  ; 
Almost  thou  art  like  the  gods." 

In  the  autumn  days,  the  creaking  of  crickets 
is  heard  at  noon  over  all  the  land,  and  as  in 
summer  they  are  heard  chiefly  at  nightfall,  so 
then  by  their  incessant  chirp  they  usher  in  the 
evening  of  the  year.  Nor  can  all  the  vanities 
that  vex  the  world  alter  one  whit  the  measure 
that  night  has  chosen.  Every  pulse-beat  is  in 
exact  time  with  the  cricket's  chant  and  the  tick- 


44        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

ings  of  the  deathwatch  in  the  wall.     Alternate 
with  these  if  you  can. 

About  two  hundred  and  eighty  birds  either 
reside  permanently  in  the  State,  or  spend  the 
summer  only,  or  make  us  a  passing  visit.  Those 
which  spend  the  winter  with  us  have  obtained 
our  warmest  sympathy.  The  nut-hatch  and 
chicadee  flitting  in  company  through  the  dells 
of  the  wood,  the  one  harshly  scolding  at  the 
intruder,  the  other  with  a  faint  lisping  note  en 
ticing  him  on  ;  the  jay  screaming  in  the  or 
chard  ;  the  crow  cawing  in  unison  with  the 
storm  ;  the  partridge,  like  a  russet  link  extended 
over  from  autumn  to  spring,  preserving  un 
broken  the  chain  of  summers;  the  hawk  with 
warrior-like  firmness  abiding  the  blasts  of  win 
ter  ;  the  robin*  and  lark  lurking  by  warm  springs 
in  the  woods ;  the  familiar  snow-bird  culling  a 
few  seeds  in  the  garden,  or  a  few  crumbs  in 
the  yard;  and  occasionally  the  shrike,  with  heed 
less  and  unfrozen  melody  bringing  back  summer 
again ;  — 

*  A  white  robin  and  a  white  quail  have  occasionally  been  seen.  It 
is  mentioned  in  Audubon  as  remarkable  that  the  nest  of  a  robin 
should  be  found  on  the  ground ;  but  this  bird  seems  to  be  less  partic 
ular  than  most  in  the  choice  of  a  building  spot.  I  have  seen  its  nest 
placed  under  the  thatched  roof  of  a  deserted  barn,  and  in  one  in 
stance,  where  the  adjacent  country  was  nearly  destitute  of  trees, 
together  with  two  of  the  phoabe,  upon  the  end  of  a  board  in  the  loft 
of  a  saw-mill,  but  a  few  feet  from  the  saw,  which  vibrated  several 
inches  with  the  motion  of  the  machinery. 


NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        45 

His  steady  sails  he  never  furls 

At  any  time  o'  year, 

And  perching  now  on  Winter's  curls, 

He  whistles  in  his  ear. 

As  the  spring  advances,  and  the  ice  is  melting 
in  the  river,  our  earliest  and  straggling  visitors 
make  their  appearance.  Again  does  the  old 
Teiaii  poet  sing,  as  well  for  New  England  as  for 
Greece,  in  the 

RETURN    OF    SPRING. 

"  Behold,  how  Spring  appearing, 
The  Graces  send  forth  roses  ; 
Behold,  how  the  wave  of  the  sea 
Is  made  smooth  by  the  calm ; 
Behold,  how  the  duck  dives ; 
Behold,  how  the  crane  travels  ; 
And  Titan  shines  constantly  bright 
The  shadows  of  the  clouds  are  moving ; 
The  works  of  man  shine; 
The  earth  puts  forth  fruits  ; 
The  fruit  of  the  olive  puts  forth. 
The  cup  of  Bacchus  is  crowned, 
Along  the  leaves,  along  the  branches, 
The  fruit,  bending  them  down,  flourishes." 

The  ducks  alight  at  this  season  in  the  still 
water,  in  company  with  the  gulls,  which  do 
not  fail  to  improve  an  east  wind  to  visit  our 
meadows,  and  swim  about  by  twos  and  threes, 
pluming  themselves,  and  diving  to  peck  at  the 
root  of  the  lily,  and  the  cranberries  which  the 


46        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

frost  has  not  loosened.  The  first  flock  of  geese 
is  seen  beating  to  north,  in  long  harrows  and 
waving  lines ;  the  gingle  of  the  song-sparrow 
salutes  us  from  the  shrubs  and  fences ;  the  plain 
tive  note  of  the  lark  comes  clear  and  sweet  from 
the  meadow;  and  the  bluebird,  like  an  azure  ray, 
glances  past  us  in  our  walk.  The  fish-hawk, 
too,  is  occasionally  seen  at  this  season  sailing 
majestically  over  the  water,  and  he  who  has 
once  observed  it  will  not  soon  forget  the  majesty 
of  its  flight.  It  sails  the  air  like  a  ship  of  the 
line,  worthy  to  struggle  with  the  elements,  fall 
ing  back  from  time  to  time  like  a  ship  on  its 
beam  ends,  and  holding  its  talons  up  as  if  ready 
for  the  arrows,  in  the  attitude  of  the  national 
bird.  It  is  a  great  presence,  as  of  the  master  of 
river  and  forest.  Its  eye  would  not  quail  before 
the  owner  of  the  soil,  but  make  him  feel  like  an 
intruder  on  its  domains.  And  then  its  retreat, 
sailing  so  steadily  away,  is  a  kind  of  advance. 
I  have  by  me  one  of  a  pair  of  ospreys,  which 
have  for  some  years  fished  in  this  vicinity,  shot 
by  a  neighboring  pond,  measuring  more  than 
two  feet  in  length,  and  six  in  the  stretch  of  its 
wings.  Nuttall  mentions  that  "  The  ancients, 
particularly  Aristotle,  pretended  that  the  ospreys 
taught  their  young  to  gaze  at  the  sun,  and  those 
who  were  unable  to  do  so  were  destroyed.  Lin 
naeus  even  believed,  on  ancient  authority,  that 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        47 

one  of  the  feet  of  this  bird  had  all  the  toes  di 
vided,  while  the  other  was  partly  webbed,  so 
that  it  could  swim  with  one  foot,  and  grasp  a 
fish  with  the  other."  But  that  educated  eye  is 
now  dim,  and  those  talons  are  nerveless.  Its 
shrill  scream  seems  yet  to  linger  in  its  throat, 
and  the  roar  of  the  sea  in  its  wings.  There  is 
the  tyranny  of  Jove  in  its  claws,  and  his  wrath 
in  the  erectile  feathers  of  the  head  and  neck.  It 
reminds  me  of  the  Argonautic  expedition,  and 
would  inspire  the  dullest  to  take  flight  over  Par 
nassus. 

The  booming  of  the  bittern,  described  by 
Goldsmith  and  Nuttall,  is  frequently  heard  in 
our  fens,  in  the  morning  and  evening,  sounding 
like  a  pump,  or  the  chopping  of  wood  in  a  frosty 
morning  in  some  distant  farm-yard.  The  man 
ner  in  which  this  sound  is  produced  I  have  not 
seen  anywhere  described.  On  one  occasion,  the 
bird  has  been  seen  by  one  of  my  neighbors  to 
thrust  its  bill  into  the  water,  and  suck  up  as 
much  as  it  could  hold,  then  raising  its  head,  it 
pumped  it  out  again  with  four  or  five  heaves  of 
the  neck,  throwing  it  two  or  three  feet,  and 
making  the  sound  each  time. 

At  length  the  summer's  eternity  is  ushered  in 
by  the  cackle  of  the  flicker  among  the  oaks  on 
the  hill-side,  and  a  new  dynasty  begins  with 
calm  security. 


18        NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

In  May  and  June  the  woodland  quire  is  in 
full  tune,  and  given  the  immense  spaces  of  hoi- 
low  air,  and  this  curious  human  ear,  one  does 
not  see  how  the  void  could  be  better  filled. 

Each  summer  sound 
Is  a  summer  round. 

As  the  season  advances,  and  those  birds  which 
make  us  but  a  passing  visit  depart,  the  woods 
become  silent  again,  and  but  few  feathers  ruffle 
the  drowsy  air.  But  the  solitary  rambler  may 
still  find  a  response  and  expression  for  every 
mood  in  the  depths  of  the  wood. 

Sometimes  I  hear  the  veery's*  clarion, 

Or  brazen  trump  of  the  impatient  jay, 

And  in  secluded  woods  the  chicadee 

Doles  out  her  scanty  notes,  which  sing  the  praise 

Of  heroes,  and  set  forth  the  loveliness 

Of  virtue  evermore. 

The  phoebe  still  sings  in  harmony  with  the 
sultry  weather  by  the  brink  of  the  pond,  nor  are 
the  desultory  hours  of  noon  in  the  midst  of  the 
village  without  their  minstrel. 

*  This  bird,  which  is  so  well  described  by  Nuttall,  but  is  appar 
ently  unknown  by  the  author  of  the  Report,  is  one  of  the  most  con- 
mon  in  the  woods  in  this  vicinity,  and  in  Cambridge  I  have  heard 
the  college  yard  ring  with  its  trill.  The  boys  call  it  "  yorrick"  from 
the  sound  of  its  querulous  and  chiding  note,  as  it  flits  near  the  trav 
eller  through  the  underwood.  The  cowbird's  egg  is  occasionally 
found  in  its  nest",  as  mentioned  by  Audubon. 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        49 

Upon  the  lofty  elm-tree  sprays 

The  vireo  rings  the  changes  sweet, 

During  the  trivial  summer  days, 

Striving  to  lift  our  thoughts  above  the  street. 

With  the  autumn  begins  in  some  measure  a 
new  spring.  The  plover  is  heard  whistling  high 
in  the  air  over  the  dry  pastures,  the  finches  flit 
from  tree  to  tree,  the  bobolinks  and  flickers  fly 
in  flocks,  and  the  goldfinch  rides  on  the  earliest 
blast,  like  a  winged  hyla  peeping  amid  the  rustle 
of  the  leaves.  The  crows,  too,  begin  now  to 
congregate ;  you  may  stand  and  count  them  as 
they  fly  low  and  straggling  over  the  landscape, 
singly  or  by  twos  and  threes,  at  intervals  of  half 
a  mile,  until  a  hundred  have  passed. 

I  have  seen  it  suggested  somewhere  that  the 
crow  was  brought  to  this  country  by  the  white 
man ;  but  I  shall  as  soon  believe  that  the  white 
man  planted  these  pines  and  hemlocks.  He  is 
no  spaniel  to  follow  our  steps ;  but  rather  flits 
about  the  clearings  like  the  dusky  spirit  of  the 
Indian,  reminding  me  oftener  of  Philip  and 
Powhatan,  than  of  Winthrop  and  Smith.  He 
is  a  relic  of  the  dark  ages.  By  just  so  slight,  by 
just  so  lasting  a  tenure  does  superstition  hold 
the  world  ever;  there  is  the  rook  in  England, 
and  the  crow  in  New  England. 

Thou  dusky  spirit  of  the  wood, 
Bird  of  an  ancient  brood, 
4 


50        NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Flitting  thy  lonely  way, 
A  meteor  in  the  summer's  day, 
From  wood  to  wood,  from  hill  to  hill, 
Low  over  forest,  field,  and  rill, 
What  wouldst  thou  say  ? 
Why  shouldst  thou  haunt  the  day  ? 
What  makes  thy  melancholy  float  ? 
What  bravery  inspires  thy  throat, 
And  bears  thee  up  above  the  clouds, 
Over  desponding  human  crowds, 
Which  far  below 
Lay  thy  haunts  low  ? 

The  late  walker  or  sailor,  in  the  October  eve 
nings,  may  hear  the  murmurings  of  the  snipe, 
circling  over  the  meadows,  the  most  spirit-like 
sound  in  nature;  and  still  later  in  the  autumn, 
when  the  frosts  have  tinged  the  leaves,  a  solitary 
loon  pays  a  visit  to  our  retired  ponds,  where  he 
may  lurk  undisturbed  till  the  season  of  moulting 
is  passed,  making  the  woods  ring  with  his  wild 
laughter.  This  bird,  the  Great  Northern  Diver, 
well  deserves  its  name ;  for  when  pursued  with 
a  boat,  it  will  dive,  and  swim  like  a  fish  under 
water,  for  sixty  rods  or  more,  as  fast  as  a  boat 
can  be  paddled,  and  its  pursuer,  if  he  would  dis 
cover  his  game  again,  must  put  his  ear  to  the 
surface  to  hear  where  it  comes  up.  When  it 
comes  to  the  surface,  it  throws  the  water  off 
with  one  shake  of  its  wings,  and  calmly  swims 
about  until  again  disturbed. 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        51 

These  are  the  sights  and  sounds  which  reach 
our  senses  oftenest  during  the  year.  But  some 
times  one  hears  a  quite  new  note,  which  has  for 
background  other  Carolinas  and  Mexicos  than 
the  books  describe,  and  learns  that  his  ornithol 
ogy  has  done  him  no  service. 

It  appears  from  the  Report  that  there  are 
about  forty  quadrupeds  belonging  to  the  State, 
and  among  these  one  is  glad  to  hear  of  a  few 
bears,  wolves,  lynxes,  and  wildcats. 

When  our  river  overflows  its  banks  in  the 
spring,  the  wind  from  the  meadows  is  laden 
with  a  strong  scent  of  musk,  and  by  its  fresh 
ness  advertises  me  of  an  unexplored  wildness. 
Those  backwoods  are  not  far  off  then.  I  am 
affected  by  the  sight  of  the  cabins  of  the  musk- 
rat,  made  of  mud  and  grass,  and  raised  three  or 
four  feet  along  the  river,  as  when  I  read  of  the 
barrows  of  Asia.  The  musk-rat  is  the  beaver 
of  the  settled  States.  Their  number  has  even 
increased  within  a  few  years  in  this  vicinity. 
Among  the  rivers  which  empty  into  the  Merri- 
mack,  the  Concord  is  known  to  the  boatmen  as 
a  dead  stream.  The  Indians  are  said  to  have 
called  it  Musketaquid,  or  Prairie  River.  Its  cur 
rent  being  much  more  sluggish,  and  its  water 
more  muddy  than  the  rest,  it  abounds  more  in  fish 
and  game  of  every  kind.  According  to  the  His 
tory  of  the  town,  "  The  fur-trade  was  here  once 


52        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

very  important.  As  early  as  1641,  a  company 
was  formed  in  the  colony,  of  which  Major  Wil- 
lard  of  Concord  was  superintendent,  and  had 
the  exclusive  right  to  trade  with  the  Indians  in 
furs  and  other  articles ;  and  for  this  right  they 
were  obliged  to  pay  into  the  public  treasury  one 
twentieth  of  all  the  furs  they  obtained."  There 
are  trappers  in  our  midst  still,  as  well  as  on  the 
streams  of  the  far  West,  who  night  and  morning 
go  the  round  of  their  traps,  without  fear  of  the 
Indian.  One  of  these  takes  from  one  hundred 
and  fifty  to  two  hundred  musk-rats  in  a  year, 
and  even  thirty-six  have  been  shot  by  one  man 
in  a  day.  Their  fur,  which  is  not  nearly  as  val 
uable  as  formerly,  is  in  good  condition  in  the 
winter  and  spring  only;  and  upon  the  breaking 
up  of  the  ice,  when  they  are  driven  out  of  their 
holes  by  the  water,  the  greatest  number  is  shot 
from  boats,  either  swimming  or  resting  on  their 
stools,  or  slight  supports  of  grass  and  reeds,  by 
the  side  of  the  stream.  Though  they  exhibit 
considerable  cunning  at  other  times,  they  are 
easily  taken  in  a  trap,  which  has  only  to  be 
placed  in  their  holes,  or  wherever  they  frequent, 
without  any  bait  being  used,  though  it  is  some 
times  rubbed  with  their  musk.  In  the  winter 
the  hunter  cuts  holes  in  the  ice,  and  shoots  them 
when  they  come  to  the  surface.  Their  burrows 
are  usually  in  the  high  banks  of  the  river,  with 


NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        53 

the  entrance  under  water,  and  rising  within  to 
above  the  level  of  high  water.  Sometimes  their 
nests,  composed  of  dried  meadow  grass  and 
flags,  may  be  discovered  where  the  bank  is  low 
and  spongy,  by  the  yielding  of  the  ground  under 
the  feet.  They  have  from  three  to  seven  or 
eight  young  in  the  spring. 

Frequently,  in  the  morning  or  evening,  a  long 
ripple  is  seen  in  the  still  water,  where  a  musk- 
rat  is  crossing  the  stream,  with  only  its  nose 
above  the  surface,  and  sometimes  a  green  bough 
in  its  mouth  to  build  its  house  with.  When  it 
finds  itself  observed,  it  will  dive  and  swim  five 
or  six  rods  under  water,  and  at  length  conceal 
itself  in  its  hole,  or  the  weeds.  It  will  remain 
under  water  for  ten  minutes  at  a  time,  and  on 
one  occasion  has  been  seen,  when  undisturbed, 
to  form  an  air- bubble  under  the  ice,  which  con 
tracted  and  expanded  as  it  breathed  at  leisure. 
When  it  suspects  danger  on  shore,  it  will  stand 
erect  like  a  squirrel,  and  survey  its  neighborhood 
for  several  minutes,  without  moving. 

In  the  fall,  if  a  meadow  intervene  between 
their  burrows  and  the  stream,  they  erect  cabins 
of  mud  and  grass,  three  or  four  feet  high,  near 
its  edge.  These  are  not  their  breeding-places, 
though  young  are  sometimes  found  in  them  in 
late  freshets,  but  rather  their  hunting-lodges,  to 
which  they  resort  in  the  winter  with  their  food, 
and  for  shelter.  Their  food  consists  chiefly  of 


54        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

flags  and  fresh-water  muscles,  the  shells  of  the 
latter  being  left  in  large  quantities  around  their 
lodges  in  the  spring. 

The  Penobscot  Indian  wears  the  entire  skin 
of  a  musk-rat,  with  the  legs  and  tail  dangling, 
and  the  head  caught  under  his  girdle,  for  a 
pouch,  into  which  he  puts  his  fishing  tackle, 
and  essences  to  scent  his  traps  with. 

The  bear,  wolf,  lynx,  wildcat,  deer,  beaver,  and 
marten,  have  disappeared ;  the  otter  is  rarely  if 
ever  seen  here  at  present ;  and  the  mink  is  less 
common  than  formerly. 

Perhaps  of  all  our  untamed  quadrupeds,  the 
fox  has  obtained  the  widest  and  most  famil 
iar  reputation,  from  the  time  of  Pilpay  and 
yEsop  to  the  present  day.  His  recent  tracks 
still  give  variety  to  a  winter's  walk.  I  tread  in 
the  steps  of  the  fox  that  has  gone  before  me  by 
some  hours,  or  which  perhaps  I  have  started, 
with  such  a  tiptoe  of  expectation,  as  if  I  were 
on  the  trail  of  the  Spirit  itself  which  resides  in 
the  wood,  and  expected  soon  to  catch  it  in  its 
lair.  I  am  curious  to  know  what  has  deter 
mined  its  graceful  curvatures,  and  how  surely 
they  were  coincident  with  the  fluctuations  of 
some  mind.  I  know  which  way  a  mind  wended, 
what  horizon  it  faced,  by  the  setting  of  these 
tracks,  and  whether  it  moved  slowly  or  rapidly, 
by  their  greater  or  less  intervals  and  distinct 
ness  ;  for  the  swiftest  step  leaves  yet  a  lasting 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        55 

trace.  Sometimes  you  will  see  the  trails  of 
many  together,  and  where  they  have  gambolled 
and  gone  through  a  hundred  evolution?,  which 
testify  to  a  singular  listlessness  arid  leisure  in 
nature. 

When  I  see  a  fox  run  across  the  pond  on  the 
snow,  with  the  carelessness  of  freedom,  or  at  in 
tervals  trace  his  course  in  the  sunshine  along 
the  ridge  of  a  hill,  I  give  up  to  him  sun  and 
earth  as  to  their  true  proprietor.  He  does  not 
go  in  the  sun,  but  it  seems  to  follow  him,  and 
there  is  a  visible  sympathy  between  him  and  it. 
Sometimes,  when  the  snow  lies  light,  and  but 
five  or  six  inches  deep,  you  may  give  chase  and 
come  up  with  one  on  foot.  In  such  a  case  he 
will  show  a  remarkable  presence  of  mind,  choos 
ing  only  the  safest  direction,  though  he  may  lose 
ground  by  it.  Notwithstanding  his  fright,  he 
will  take  no  step  which  is  not  beautiful.  His 
pace  is  a  sort  of  leopard  canter,  as  if  he  were 
in  nowise  impeded  by  the  snow,  but  were  hus 
banding  his  strength  all  the  while.  When  the 
ground  is  uneven,  the  course  is  a  series  of  grace 
ful  curves,  conforming  to  the  shape  of  the  sur 
face.  He  runs  as  though  there  were  not  a  bone 
in  his  back.  Occasionally  dropping  his  muzzle 
io  the  ground  for  a  rod  or  two,  and  then  tossing 
his  head  aloft,  when  satisfied  of  his  course 
When  he  comes  to  a  declivity,  he  will  put  his 


56        NATURAL  IIISTOKY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

forefeet  together,  and  slide  swiftly  down  it,  shov 
ing  the  snow  before  him.  He  treads  so  softly 
that  you  would  hardly  hear  it  from  any  near 
ness,  and  yet  with  such  expression  that  it  would 
not  be  quite  inaudible  at  any  distance. 

Of  fishes,  seventy-five  genera  and  one  hun 
dred  and  seven  species  are  described  in  the  Re 
port.  The  fisherman  will  be  startled  to  learn 
that  there  are  but  about  a  dozen  kinds  in  the 
ponds  and  streams  of  any  inland  town ;  and 
almost  nothing  is  known  of  their  habits.  Only 
their  names  and  residence  make  one  love  fishes. 
I  would  know  even  the  number  of  their  fin-rays, 
and  how  many  scales  compose  the  lateral  line. 
I  am  the  wiser  in  respect  to  all  knowledges,  and 
the  better  qualified  for  all  fortunes,  for  knowing 
that  there  is  a  minnow  in  the  brook.  Methinks 
I  have  need  even  of  his  sympathy,  and  to  be  his 
fellow  in  a  degree. 

I  have  experienced  such  simple  delight  in  the 
trivial  matters  of  fishing  and  sporting,  formerly, 
as  might  have  inspired  the  muse  of  Homer  or 
Shakspeare ;  and  now,  when  I  turn  the  pages 
and  ponder  the  plates  of  the  Angler's  Souvenir, 
I  am  fain  to  exclaim, — 

"  Can  these  things  be, 
And  overcome  us  like  a  summer's  cloud  ?" 

Next  to  nature,  it  seems  as  if  man's  actions 


NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        57 

were  the  most  natural,  they  so  gently  accord 
with  her.  The  small  seines  of  flax  stretched 
across  the  shallow  and  transparent  parts  of  our 
river,  are  no  more  intrusion  than  the  cobweb  in 
the  sun.  I  stay  my  boat  in  midcurrent,  and 
look  down  in  the  sunny  water  to  see  the  civil 
rneshes  of  his  nets,  and  wonder  how  the  bluster 
ing  people  of  the  town  could  have  done  this 
elvish  work.  The  twine  looks  like  a  new  river 
weed,  and  is  to  the  river  as  a  beautiful  me 
mento  of  man's  presence  in  nature,  discovered 
as  silently  and  delicately  as  a  footprint  in  the 
sand. 

When  the  ice  is  covered  with  snow,  I  do  not 
suspect  the  wealth  under  my  feet ;  that  there  is 
as  good  as  a  mine  under  me  wherever  I  go. 
How  many  pickerel  are  poised  on  easy  fin  fath 
oms  below  the  loaded  wain.  The  revolution  of 
the  seasons  must  be  a  curious  phenomenon  to 
them.  At  length  the  sun  and  wind  brush  aside 

o 

their  curtain,  and  they  see  the  heavens  again. 

Early  in  the  spring,  after  the  ice  has  melted, 
is  the  time  for  spearing  fish.  Suddenly  the 
wind  shifts  from  northeast  and  east  to  west  and 
south,  and  every  icicle,  which  has  tinkled  on  the 
meadow  grass  so  long,  trickles  down  its  stem, 
and  seeks  its  level  unerringly  with  a  million 
comrades.  The  steam  curls  up  from  every  roof 
and  fence. 


58        NATURAL  HISTOKY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

I  see  the  civil  sun  drying  earth's  tears, 
Her  tears  of  joy,  which  only  faster  flow. 

In  the  brooks  is  heard  the  slight  grating 
Bound  of  small  cakes  of  ice,  floating  with  vari 
ous  speed,  full  of  content  and  promise,  and 
where  the  water  gurgles  under  a  natural  bridge, 
you  may  hear  these  hasty  rafts  hold  conver 
sation  in  an  undertone.  Every  rill  is  a  chan 
nel  for  the  juices  of  the  meadow.  In  the 
ponds  the  ice  cracks  with  a  merry  and  inspirit 
ing  din,  and  down  the  larger  streams  is  whirled 
grating  hoarsely,  and  clashing  its  way  along, 
which  was  so  lately  a  highway  for  the  wood 
man's  team  and  the  fox,  sometimes  with  the 
tracks  of  the  skaters  still  fresh  upon  it,  and 
the  holes  cut  for  pickerel.  Town  committees 
anxiously  inspect  the  bridges  and  causeways, 
as  if  by  mere  eye-force  to  intercede  with  the  ice, 
and  save  the  treasury. 

The  river  swelleth  more  and  more, 
Like  some  sweet  influence  stealing  o'er 
The  passive  town  ;  and  for  a  while 
Each  tussuck  makes  a  tiny  isle, 
Where,  on  some  friendly  Ararat, 
llesteth  the  weary  water-rat. 

No  ripple  shows  Musketaquid, 

Her  very  current  e'en  is  hid, 

As  deepest  souls  do  calmest  rest, 

When  thoughts  are  swelling  in  the  breast, 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        59 

And  she  that  in  the  summer's  drought 
Doth  make  a  rippling  and  a  rout, 
Sleeps  from  Nahshawtuck  to  the  Cliff, 
Unrufiled  by  a  single  skilF. 
But  by  a  thousand  distant  hills 
The  louder  roar  a  thousand  rills, 
And  ninny  a  spring  which  now  is  dumb, 
And  many  a  stream  with  smothered  hum, 
])oth  swifter  well  and  faster  glide, 
Though  buried  deep  beneath  the  tide. 

Our  village  shows  a  rural  Venice, 
Its  broad  lagoons  where  yonder  fen  is  ; 
As  lovely  as  the  Bay  of  Naples 
Yon  placid  cove  amid  the  maples ; 
And  in  my  neighbor's  field  of  corn 
I  recognize  the  Golden  Horn. 

Here  Nature  taught  from  year  to  year, 
When  onlv  red  men  came  to  hear, 
Methinks  'twas  in  this  school  of  art 
Venice  and  Naples  learned  their  part ; 
But  still  their  mistress,  to  my  mind, 
Her  young  disciples  leaves  behind. 

The  fisherman  now  repairs  and  launches  his 
boat.  The  best  time  for  spearing  is  at  this  sea 
son,  before  the  weeds  have  begun  to  grow,  and 
while  the  fishes  lie  in  the  shallow  water,  for  in 
summer  they  prefer  the  cool  depths,  and  in  the 
autumn  they  are  still  more  or  less  concealed  by 
the  grass.  The  first  requisite  is  fuel  for  you? 
crate  ;  and  for  this  purpose  the  roots  of  the  pitch- 
pine  are  commonly  used,  found  under  decayed 


60        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

stumps,  where  the  trees  have  been  felled  eight 
or  ten  years. 

With  a  crate,  or  jack,  made  of  iron  hoops,  to 
contain  your  fire,  and  attached  to  the  bow  of  i 
your  boat  about  three  feet  from  the  water,  a 
fish-spear  with  seven  tines,  and  fourteen  feet 
long,,  a  large  basket,  or  barrow,  to  carry  your 
fuel  and  bring  back  your  fish,  and  a  thick  outer 
garment,  you  are  equipped  for  a  cruise.  It 
should  be  a  warm  and  still  evening ;  and^  then 
with  a  fire  crackling  merrily  at  the  prow,  you 
may  launch  forth  like  a  cucullo  into  the  night. 
The  dullest  soul  cannot  go  upon  such  an  expe 
dition  without  some  of  the  spirit  of  adventure; 
as  if  he  had  stolen  the  boat  of  Charon  and  gone 
down  the  Styx  on  a  midnight  expedition  into 
the  realms  of  Pluto.  And  much  speculation 
does  this  wandering  star  afford  to  the  musing 
nightwalker,  leading  him  on  and  on,  jack-o'lan- 
tern-like,  over  the  meadows  ;  or,  if  he  is  wiser, 
he  amuses  himself  with  imagining  what  of 
human  life,  far  in  the  silent  night,  is  flitting 
mothlike  round  its  candle.  The  silent  navi 
gator  shoves  his  craft  gently  over  the  water,  with 
a  smothered  pride  and  sense  of  benefaction,  as 
if  he  were  the  phosphor,  or  light-bringer,  to  these 
dusky  realms,  or  some  sister  moon,  blessing  the 
spaces  with  her  light.  The  waters,  for  a  rod  or 
two  on  either  hand  and  several  feet  in  depth,  are 


NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        61 

lit  up  with  more  than  noonday  distinctness,  and 
he  enjoys  the  opportunity  which  so  many  have 
desired,  for  the  roofs  of  a  city  are  indeed  raised, 
and  he  surveys  the  midnight  economy  of  the 
fishes.  There  they  lie  in  every  variety  of  pos 
ture  ;  some  on  their  backs,  with  their  white  bel 
lies  uppermost,  some  suspended  in  midwater, 
some  sculling  gently  along  with  a  dreamy  mo 
tion  of  the  fins,  and  others  quite  active  and  wide 
awake,  —  a  scene  not  unlike  what  the  human 
city  would  present.  Occasionally  he  will  en 
counter  a  turtle  selecting  the  choicest  morsels, 
or  a  musk-rat  resting  on  a  tussuck.  He  may 
exercise  his  dexterity,  if  he  sees  fit,  on  the  more 
distant  and  active  fish,  or  fork  the  nearer  into 
his  boat,  as  potatoes  out  of  a  pot,  or  even  take 
the  sound  sleepers  with  his  hands.  But  these 
last  accomplishments  he  will  soon  learn  to  dis 
pense  with,  distinguishing  the  real  object  of  his 
pursuit,  and  find  compensation  in  the  beauty 
arid  never-ending  novelty  of  his  position.  The 
pines  growing  down  to  the  water's  edge  will 
show  newly  as  in  the  glare  of  a  conflagration  ; 
and  as  he  floats  under  the  willows  with  his 
light,  the  song-sparrow  will  often  wake  on  her 
perch,  and  sing  that  strain  at  midnight,  which 
she  had  meditated  for  the  morning.  And  when 
he  has  done,  he  may  have  to  steer  his  way  home 
through  the  dark  by  the  north  star,  and  he  will 


62        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

feel  himself  some  degrees  nearer  to  it  for  having 
lost  his  way  on  the  earth. 

The  fishes  commonly  taken  in  this  way  are 
pickerel,  suckers,  perch,  eels,  pouts,  breams,  and 
shiners,  —  from  thirty  to  sixty  weight  in  a  night. 
Some  are  hard  to  be  recognized  in  the  unnat 
ural  light,  especially  the  perch,  which,  his  dark 
bands  being  exaggerated,  acquires  a  ferocious 
aspect.  The  number  of  these  transverse  bands, 
which  the  Report  states  to  be  seven,  is,  however, 
very  variable,  for  in  some  of  our  ponds  they 
have  nine  and  ten  even. 

It  appears  that  we  have  eight  kinds  of  tor 
toises,  twelve  snakes,  —  but  one  of  which  is 
venomous,  —  nine  frogs  and  toads,  nine  sala 
manders,  and  one  lizard,  for  our  neighbors. 

I  am  particularly  attracted  by  the  motions  of 
the  serpent  tribe.  They  make  our  hands  and 
feet,  the  wings  of  the  bird,  and  the  fins  of  the 
fish  seems  very  superfluous,  as  if  nature  had 
only  indulged  her  fancy  in  making  them.  The 
black  snake  will  dart  into  a  bush  when  pursued, 
and  circle  round  and  round  with  an  easy  and 
graceful  motion,  amid  the  thin  and  bare  twigs, 
five  or  six  feet  from  the  ground,  as  a  bird  flits 
from  bough  to  bough,  or  hang  in  festoons  be 
tween  the  forks.  Elasticity  and  flexibleness  in 
the  simpler  forms  of  animal  life  are  equivalent 


NATURAL   HISTORY  OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        63 

to  a  complex  system  of  limbs  in  the  higher;  and 
we  have  only  to  be  as  wise  and  wily  as  the  ser 
pent,  to  perform  as  difficult  feats  without  the 
vulgar  assistance  of  hands  and  feet. 

In  May,  the  snapping  turtle,  Emysaurus  ser- 
pentina,)  is  frequently  taken  on  the  meadows  and 
in  the  river.  The  fisherman,  taking  sight  over 
Ihe  calm  surface,  discovers  its  snout  projecting 
above  the  water,  at  the  distance  of  many  rods, 
and  easily  secures  his  prey  through  its  unwill 
ingness  to  disturb  the  water  by  swimming  has 
tily  away,  for,  gradually  drawing  its  head  under, 
it  remains  resting  on  some  limb  or  clump  of 
grass.  Its  eggs,  which  are  buried  at  a  distance 
from  the  water,  in  some  soft  place,  as  a  pigeon- 
bed,  are  frequently  devoured  by  the  skunk.  It 
will  catch  fish  by  daylight,  as  a  toad  catches 
flies,  and  is  said  to  emit  a  transparent  fluid  from 
its  mouth  to  attract  them. 

Nature  has  taken  more  care  than  the  fondest 
parent  for  the  education  and  refinement  of  her 
children.  Consider  the  silent  influence  which 
flowers  exert,  no  less  upon  the  ditcher  in  the 
meadow  than  the  lady  in  the  bower.  When  I 
walk  in  the  woods,  I  am  reminded  that  a  wise 
purveyor  has  been  there  before  me ;  my  most 
delicate  experience  is  typified  there.  I  am  struck 
with  the  pleasing  friendships  and  unanimities  of 
nature,  as  when  the  lichen  on  the  trees  takes  the 


64        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

form  of  their  leaves.  In  the  most  stupendous 
scenes  you  will  see  delicate  and  fragile  features, 
as  slight  wreaths  of  vapor,  dewlines,  feathery 
sprays,  which  suggest  a  high  refinement,  a  no 
ble  blood  and  breeding,  as  it  were.  It  is  not 
hard  to  account  for  elves  and  fairies ;  they  rep 
resent  this  light  grace,  this  ethereal  gentility. 
Bring  a  spray  from  the  wood,  or  a  crystal  from 
the  brook,  and  place  it  on  your  mantel,  and 
your  household  ornaments  will  seem  plebeian 
beside  its  nobler  fashion  and  bearing.  It  will 
wave  superior  there,  as  if  used  to  a  more  refined 
and  polished  circle.  It  has  a  salute  and  a  re 
sponse  to  all  your  enthusiasm  and  heroism. 

In  the  winter,  I  stop  short  in  the  path  to  ad 
mire  how  the  trees  grow  up  without  forethought, 
regardless  of  the  time  and  circumstances.  They 
do  not  wait  as  man  does,  but  now  is  the  golden 
age  of  the  sapling.  Earth,  air,  sun,  and  rain, 
are  occasion  enough ;  they  were  no  better  in 
primeval  centuries.  The  "  winter  of  their  dis 
content"  never  comes.  Witness  the  buds  of 
the  native  poplar  standing  gayly  out  to  the  frost 
on  the  sides  of  its  bare  switches.  They  express 
a  naked  confidence.  With  cheerful  heart  one 
could  be  a  sojourner  in  the  wilderness,  if  he  were 
sure  to  find  there  the  catkins  of  the  willow  or 
the  alder.  When  I  read  of  them  in  the  accounts 
of  northern  adventurers,  by  Baffin's  Bay  or  Mac- 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        65 

kenzie's  river,  I  see  how  even  there  too  I  could 
dwell.  They  are  our  little  vegetable  redeemers. 
Methinks  our  virtue  will  hold  out  till  they  come 
again.  They  are  worthy  to  have  had  a  greater 
than  Minerva  or  Ceres  for  their  inventor.  Who 
was  the  benignant  goddess  that  bestowed  them 
on  mankind? 

Nature  is  mythical  and  mystical  always,  and 
works  with  the  license  and  extravagance  of 
genius.  She  has  her  luxurious  and  florid  style 
as  well  as  art.  Having  a  pilgrim's  cup  to  make, 
she  gives  to  the  whole,  stem,  bowl,  handle,  and 
nose,  some  fantastic  shape,  as  if  it  were  to  be 
the  car  of  some  fabulous  marine  deity,  a  Ne- 
reus  or  Triton. 

In  the  winter,  the  botanist  needs  not  confine 
himself  to  his  books  and  herbarium,  and  give 
over  his  out-door  pursuits,  but  may  study  a  new 
department  of  vegetable  physiology,  what  may 
be  called  crystalline  botany,  then.  The  winter 
of  1837  was  unusually  favorable  for  this.  In  De 
cember  of  that  year,  the  Genius  of  vegetation 
seemed  to  hover  by  night  over  its  summer 
haunts  with  unusual  persistency.  Such  a  hoar 
frost,  as  is  very  uncommon  here  or  anywhere, 
and  whose  full  effects  can  never  be  witnessed 
after  sunrise,  occurred  several  times.  As  I  went 
forth  early  on  a  still  and  frosty  morning,  the  trees 
looked  like  airy  creatures  of  darkness  caught 
5 


66        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 

napping ;  on  this  side  huddled  together  with 
their  gray  hairs  streaming  in  a  secluded  valley, 
which  the  sun  had  not  penetrated  ;  on  that  hur 
rying  off  in  Indian  file  along  some  watercourse, 
while  the  shrubs  and  grasses,  like  elves  and 
fairies  of  the  night,  sought  to  hide  their  dimin 
ished  heads  in  the  snow.  The  river,  viewed 
from  the  high  bank,  appeared  of  a  yellowish 
green  color,  though  all  the  landscape  was  white. 
Every  tree,  shrub,  and  spire  of  grass,  that  could 
raise  its  head  above  the  snow,  was  covered  with 
a  dense  ice-foliage,  answering,  as  it  were,  leaf 
for  leaf  to  its  summer  dress.  Even  the  fences 
had  put  forth  leaves  in  the  night.  The  centre, 
diverging,  and  more  minute  fibses  were  per 
fectly  distinct,  and  the  edges  regularly  indented. 
These  leaves  were  on  the  side  of  the  twig  or 
stubble  opposite  to  the  sun,  meeting  it  for  the 
most  part  at  right  angles,  and  there  were  others 
standing  out  at  all  possible  angles  upon  these 
and  upon  one  another,  with  no  twig  or  stubble 
supporting  them.  When  the  first  rays  of  the 
sun  slanted  over  the  scene,  the  grasses  seemed 
hung  with  innumerable  jewels,  which  jingled 
merrily  as  they  were  brushed  by  the  foot  of  the 
traveller,  and  reflected  all  the  hues  of  the  rain 
bow  as  he  moved  from  side  to  side.  It  struck 
me  that  these  ghost  leaves,  and  the  green  ones 
whose  forms  they  assume,  were  the  creatures  of 


NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        67 

but  one  law ;  that  in  obedience  to  the  same  law 
the  vegetable  juices  swell  gradually  into  the  per 
fect  leaf,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  crystalline 
particles  troop  to  their  standard  in  the  same 
order,  on  the  other.  As  if  the  material  were 
indifferent,  but  the  law  one  and  invariable,  and 
every  plant  in  the  spring  but  pushed  up  into 
and  filled  a  permanent  and  eternal  mould,  which, 
summer  and  winter  forever,  is  waiting  to  be  filled. 

This  foliate  structure  is  common  to  the  coral 
and  the  plumage  of  birds,  and  to  how  large  a 
part  of  animate  and  inanimate  nature.  The 
same  independence  of  law  on  matter  is  observa 
ble  in  many  other  instances,  as  in  the  natural 
rhymes,  when  some  animal  form,  color,  or  odor, 
has  its  counterpart  in  some  vegetable.  As,  in 
deed,  all  rhymes  imply  an  eternal  melody,  inde 
pendent  of  any  particular  sense. 

As  confirmation  of  the  fact,  that  vegetation 
is  but  a  kind  of  crystallization,  every  one  may 
observe  how,  upon  the  edge  of  the  melting  frost 
on  the  window,  the  needle-shaped  particles  are 
bundled  together  so  as  to  resemble  fields  wav 
ing  with  grain,  or  shocks  rising  here  and  there 
from  the  stubble;  on  one  side  the  vegetation  of 
the  torrid  zone,  high-towering  palms  and  wide 
spread  banyans,  such  as  are  seen  in  pictures  of 
oriental  scenery ;  on  the  other,  arctic  pines  stiff 
frozen,  with  downcast  branches. 


68        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Vegetation  has  been  made  the  type  of  all 
growth ;  but  as  in  crystals  the  law  is  more  ob 
vious,  their  material  being  more  simple,  and  for 
the  most  part  more  transient  and  fleeting,  would 
it  not  be  as  philosophical  as  convenient  to  con 
sider  all  growth,  all  filling  up  within  the  limits 
of  nature,  but  a  crystallization  more  or  less  rapid? 

On  this  occasion,  in  the  side  of  the  high  bank 
of  the  river,  wherever  the  water  or  other  cause 
had  formed  a  cavity,  its  throat  and  outer  edge, 
like  the  entrance  to  a  citadel,  bristled  with  a 
glistening  ice-armor.  In  one  place  you  might 
see  minute  ostrich-feathers,  which  seemed  the 
waving  plumes  of  the  warriors  Sling  into  the 
fortress ;  in  another,  the  glancing,  fan-shaped 
banners  of  the  Lilliputian  host;  and  in  another, 
the  needle-shaped  particles  collected  into  bun 
dles,  resembling  the  plumes  of  the  pine,  might 
pass  for  a  phalanx  of  spears.  From  the  under 
side  of  the  ice  in  the  brooks,  where  there  was  a 
thicker  ice  below,  depended  a  mass  of  crystal 
lization,  four  or  five  inches  deep,  in  the  form  of 
prisms,  with  their  lower  ends  open,  which,  when 
the  ice  was  laid  on  its  smooth  side,  resembled 
the  roofs  and  steeples  of  a  Gothic  city,  or  the 
vessels  of  a  crowded  haven  under  a  press  of 
canvas.  The  very  mud  in  the  road,  where  the 
ice  had  melted,  was  crystallized  with  deep  rec 
tilinear  fissures,  and  the  crystalline  masses  in 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS.        69 

the  sides  of  the  ruts  resembled  exactly  asbestos 
in  the  disposition  of  their  needles.  Around  the 
roots  of  the  stubble  and  flower-stalks,  the  frost 
was  gathered  into  the  form  of  irregular  conical 
shells,  or  fairy  rings.  In  some  places  the  ice- 
crystals  were  lying  upon  granite  rocks,  directly 
over  crystals  of  quartz,  the  frost-work  of  a  longer 
night,  crystals  of  a  longer  period,  but  to  some 
eye  unprejudiced  by  the  short  term  of  human 
life,  melting  as  fast  as  the  former. 

In  the  Report  on  the  Invertebrate  Animals, 
this  singular  fact  is  recorded,  which  teaches  us 
to  put  a  new  value  on  time  and  space.  "  The 
distribution  of  the  marine  shells  is  well  worthy 
of  notice  as  a  geological  fact.  Cape  Cod,  the 
right  arm  of  the  Commonwealth,  reaches  out 
into  the  ocean,  some  fifty  or  sixty  miles.  It  is 
nowhere  many  miles  wide;  but  this  narrow  point 
of  land  has  hitherto  proved  a  barrier  to  the  mi 
grations  of  many  species  of  Mollusca.  Several 
genera  and  numerous  species,  which  are  separ 
ated  by  the  intervention  of  only  a  few  miles  of 
land,  are  effectually  prevented  from  mingling  by 
the  Cape,  and  do  not  pass  from  one  side  to  the 
other Of  the  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
seven  marine  species,  eighty-three  do  not  pass  to 
the  south  shore,  and  fifty  are  not  found  on  the 
north  shore  of  the  Cape." 

That  common  muscle,  the  Utiio  complanatus. 


70        NATURAL  HISTORY   OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

or  more  properly  fluviatilis,  left  in  the  spring  by 
the  musk-rat  upon  rocks  and  stumps,  appears  to 
have  been  an  important  article  of  food  with  the 
Indians.  In  one  place,  where  they  are  said  to 
have  feasted,  they  are  found  in  large  quantities, 
at  an  elevation  of  thirty  feet  above  the  river,  fill 
ing  the  soil  to  the  depth  of  a  foot,  and  mingled 
with  ashes  and  Indian  remains. 

The  works  we  have  placed  at  the  head  of  our 
chapter,  with  as  much  license  as  the  preacher 
selects  his  text,  are  such  as  imply  more  labor 
than  enthusiasm.  The  State  wanted  complete 
catalogues  of  its  natural  riches,  with  such  addi 
tional  facts  merely  as  would  be  directly  useful. 

The  reports  on  Fishes,  Reptiles,  Insects,  and 
Invertebrate  Animals,  however,  indicate  labor 
and  research,  and  have  a  value  independent  of 
the  object  of  the  legislature. 

Those  on  Herbaceous  Plants  and  Birds  can 
not  be  of  much  value,  as  long  as  Bigelow  and 
Nuttall  are  accessible.  They  serve  but  to  indi 
cate,  with  more  or  less  exactness,  what  species 
are  found  in  the  State.  We  detect  several  errors 
ourselves,  and  a  more  practised  eye  would  no 
doubt  expand  the  list. 

The  Quadrupeds  deserved  a  more  final  and 
instructive  report  than  they  have  obtained. 

These  volumes  deal  much  in  measurements 
and  minute  descriptions,  not  interesting  to  the 


NATURAL   HISTORY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        71 

general  reader,  with  only  here  and  there  a  col 
ored  sentence  to  allure  him,  like  those  plants 
growing  in  dark  forests,  which  bear  only  leaves 
without  blossoms.  But  the  ground  was  com 
paratively  unbroken,  and  we  will  not  complain 
of  the  pioneer,  if  he  raises  no  flowers  with  his 
first  crop.  Let  us  not  underrate  the  value  of  a 
fact ;  it  will  one  day  flower  in  a  truth.  It  is 
astonishing  how  few  facts  of  importance  are 
added  in  a  century  to  the  natural  history  of  any 
animal.  The  natural  history  of  man  himself  is 
still  being  gradually  written.  Men  are  knowing 
enough  after  their  fashion.  Every  countryman 
and  dairymaid  knows  that  the  coats  of  the  fourth 
stomach  of  the  calf  will  curdle  milk,  and  what 
particular  mushroom  is  a  safe  and  nutritious 
diet.  You  cannot  go  into  any  field  or  wood, 
but  it  \vill  seem  as  if  every  stone  had  been 
turned,  and  the  bark  on  every  tree  ripped  up. 
But,  after  all,  it  is  much  easier  to  discover  than 
to  see  when  the  cover  is  off.  It  has  been  well 
said  that  "  the  attitude  of  inspection  is  prone/' 
Wisdom  does  not  inspect,  but  behold.  We 
must  look  a  long  time  before  we  can  see.  Slow 
are  the  beginnings  of  philosophy.  He  has  some 
thing  demoniacal  in  him,  who  can  discern  a  law 
or  couple  two  facts.  We  can  imagine  a  time 
when,  —  "Water  runs  down  hill." — may  have 
been  taught  in  the  schools.  The  tru»  man  of 


72        NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 

science  will  know  nature  better  by  his  finer  or 
ganization  ;  he  will  smell,  taste,  see,  hear,  feel, 
better  than  other  men.  His  will  be  a  deeper 
and  finer  experience.  We  do  not  learn  by  infer 
ence  and  deduction,  and  the  application  of  math 
ematics  to  philosophy,  but  by  direct  intercourse 
and  sympathy.  It  is  with  science  as  with  eth 
ics,  —  we  cannot  know  truth  by  contrivance  and 
method ;  the  Baconian  is  as  false  as  any  other, 
and  with  all  the  helps  of  machinery  and  the  arts, 
the  most  scientific  will  still  be  the  healthiest 
and  friendliest  man,  and  possess  a  more  perfect 
Indian  wisdom. 


A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

[1843.] 


The  needles  of  the  pine 
All  to  the  west  incline. 


CONCORD,  July  19,  1842. 

SUMMER  and  winter  our  eyes  had  rested  on 
the  dim  outline  of  the  mountains  in  our  hori 
zon,  to  which  distance  and  indistinctness  lent 
a  grandeur  not  their  own,  so  that  they  served 
equally  to  interpret  all  the  allusions  of  poets 
and  travellers;  whether  with  Homer,  on  a  spring 
morning,  we  sat  down  on  the  many- peaked 
Olympus,  or,  with  Virgil  and  his  compeers, 
roamed  the  Etrurian  and  Thessalian  hills,  or 
with  Humboldt  measured  the  more  modern  An 
des  and  Teneriffe.  Thus  we  spoke  our  mind 
to  them,  standing  on  the  Concord  cliffs. — 

With  frontier  strength  ye  stand  your  ground, 
With  grand  content  ye  circle  round, 
Tumultuous  silence  for  all  sound, 
Ye  distant  nursery  of  rills, 
Monadnock,  and  the  Peterboro'  hills ; 
Like  some  vast  fleet, 


74  A  WALK   TO   WACHUSETT. 

Sailing  through  rain  and  sleet, 

Through  winter's  cold  and  summer's  heat ; 

Still  holding  on,  upon  your  high  emprise, 

Until  ye  find  a  shore  amid  the  skies  ; 

Not  skulking  close  to  land, 

With  cargo  contraband, 

For  they  who  sent  a  venture  out  by  ye 

Have  set  the  sun  to  see 

Their  honesty. 

Ships  of  the  line,  each  one, 

Ye  to  the  westward  run, 

Always  before  the  gale, 

Under  a  press  of  sail, 

With  weight  of  metal  all  untold. 

I  seem  to  feel  ye,  in  my  firm  seat  here, 

Immeasurable  depth  of  hold, 

And  breadth  of  beam,  and  length  of  running  gear. 

Methinks  ye  take  luxurious  pleasure 

In  your  novel  western  leisure ; 

So  cool  your  brows,  and  freshly  blue, 

As  Time  had  nought  for  ye  to  do ; 

For  ye  lie  at  your  length, 

An  unappropriated  strength, 

Unhewn  primeval  timber, 

For  knees  so  stiff,  for  masts  so  limber ; 

The  stock  of  which  new  earths  are  made, 

One  day  to  be  our  western  trade, 

Fit  for  the  stanchions  of  a  world 

Which  through  the  seas  of  space  is  hurled. 

While  we  enjoy  a  lingering  ray, 
Ye  still  o'ertop  the  western  day, 
Reposing  yonder,  on  God's  croft, 
Like  solid  stacks  of  hay. 


A  WALK  TO   WACHUSETT.  75 

Edged  with  silver,  and  with  gold, 

The  clouds  hang  o'er  in  damask  fold, 

And  with  such  depth  of  amber  light 

The  west  is  dight, 

Where  still  a  few  rays  slant, 

That  even  heaven  seems  extravagant. 

On  the  earth's  edge  mountains  and  trees 

Stand  as  they  were  on  air  graven, 

Or  as  the  vessels  in  a  haven 

Await  the  morning  breeze. 

I  fancy  even 

Through  your  defiles  windeth  the  way  to  heaven  ; 

And  yonder  still,  in  spite  of  history's  page, 

Linger  the  golden  and  the  silver  age ; 

Upon  the  laboring  gale 

The  news  of  future  centuries  is  brought, 

And  of  new  dynasties  of  thought, 

From  your  remotest  vale. 

But  special  I  remember  thee, 

Wachusett,  who  like  me 

Standcst  alone  without  society. 

Thy  far  blue  eye, 

A  remnant  of  the  sky, 

Seen  through  the  clearing  or  the  gorge, 

Or  from  the  windows  on  the  forge, 

Doth  leaven  all  it  passes  by. 

Nothing  is  true, 

But  stands  'tween  me  and  you, 

Thou  western  pioneer, 

Who  know'st  not  shame  nor  fear, 

By  venturous  spirit  driven, 

Under  the  eaves  of  heaven, 

And  can'st  expand  thee  there, 

And  breathe  enough  of  air  ? 


76  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

Upholding  heaven,  holding  down  earth, 

Thy  pastime  from  thy  birth, 

Not  steadied  by  the  one,  nor  leaning  on  the  other; 

May  I  approve  myself  thy  worthy  brother ! 

At  length,  like  Rasselas,  and  other  inhabitants 
of  happy  valleys,  we  resolved  to  scale  the  blue 
wall  which  bound  the  western  horizon,  though 
not  without  misgivings,  that  thereafter  no  visi 
ble  fairy  land  would  exist  for  us.  But  we  will 
not  leap  at  once  to  our  journey's  end,  though 
near,  but  imitate  Homer,  who  conducts  his 
reader  over  the  plain,  and  along  the  resound 
ing  sea,  though  it  be  but  to  the  tent  of  Achilles. 
In  the  spaces  of  thought  are  the  reaches  of  land 
and  water,  where  men  go  and  come.  The  land 
scape  lies  far  and  fair  within,  and  the  deepest 
thinker  is  the  farthest  travelled. 

At  a  cool  and  early  hour  on  a  pleasant  morn 
ing  in  July,  my  companion  and  I  passed  rapidly 
through  Acton  and  Stow,  stopping  to  rest  and 
refresh  us  on  the  bank  of  a  small  stream,  a  tribu 
tary  of  the  Assabet,  in  the  latter  tow^n.  As  we 
traversed  the  cool  woods  of  Acton,  with  stout 
staves  in  our  hands,  we  were  cheered  by  the 
song  of  the  red-eye,  the  thrushes,  the  phoebe, 
and  the  cuckoo  ;  and  as  we  passed  through  the 
open  country,  we  inhaled  the  fresh  scent  of  every 
field,  and  all  nature  lay  passive,  to  be  viewed 
and  travelled.  Every  rail,  every  farm-house, 


A  WALK   TO   WACHUSETT.  77 

seen  dimly  in  the  twilight,  every  tinkling  sound 
told  of  peace  and  purity,  and  we  moved  hap 
pily  along  the  dank  roads,  enjoying  not  such 
privacy  as  the  day  leaves  when  it  withdraws, 
but  such  as  it  has  not  profaned.  It  was  soli 
tude  with  light ;  which  is  better  than  darkness. 
But  anon,  the  sound  of  the  mower's  rifle  was 
heard  in  the  fields,  and  this,  too,  mingled  with 
the  lowing  kine. 

This  part  of  our  route  lay  through  the  coun 
try  of  hops,  which  plant  perhaps  supplies  the 
want  of  the  vine  in  American  scenery,  and  may 
remind  the  traveller  of  Italy,  and  the  South  of 
France,  whether  he  traverses  the  country  when 
the  hop-fields,  as  then,  present  solid  and  regular 
masses  of  verdure,  hanging  in  graceful  festoons 
from  pole  to  pole ;  the  cool  coverts  where  lurk 
the  gales  which  refresh  the  wayfarer ;  or  in  Sep 
tember,  when  the  women  and  children,  and  the 
neighbors  from  far  and  near,  are  gathered  to  pick 
the  hops  into  long  troughs ;  or  later  still,  when 
the  poles  stand  piled  in  vast  pyramids  in  the 
yards,  or  lie  in  heaps  by  the  roadside. 

The  culture  of  the  hop,  with  the  processes  of 
picking,  drying  in  the  kiln,  and  packing  for  the 
market,  as  well  as  the  uses  to  which  it  is  ap 
plied,  so  analogous  to  the  culture  and  uses  of 
the  grape,  may  afford  a  theme  for  future  poets. 

The   mower  in  the   adjacent  meadow  could 


78  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

not  tell  us  the  name  of  the  brook  on  whose 
banks  we  had  rested,  or  whether  it  had  any, 
but  his  younger  companion,  perhaps  his  brother, 
knew  that  it  was  Great  Brook.  Though  they 
stood  very  near  together  in  the  field,  the  things 
they  knew  were  very  far  apart;  nor  did  they 
suspect  each  other's  reserved  knowledge,  till  the 
stranger  came  by.  In  Bolton,  while  we  rested 
on  the  rails  of  a  cottage  fence,  the  strains  of 
music  which  issued  from  within,  probably  in 
compliment  to  us,  sojourners,  reminded  us  that 
thus  far  men  were  fed  by  the  accustomed  pleas 
ures.  So  soon  did  we,  wayfarers,  begin  to  learn 
that  man's  life  is  rounded  with  the  same  few 
facts,  the  same  simple  relations  everywhere,  and 
it  is  vain  to  travel  to  find  it  new.  The  flowers 
grow  more  various  ways  than  he.  But  coming 
soon  to  higher  land,  which  afforded  a  prospect  of 
the  mountains,  we  thought  we  had  not  travelled 
in  vain,  if  it  were  only  to  hear  a  truer  and  wilder 
pronunciation  of  their  names,  from  the  lips  of 
the  inhabitants  ;  not  W«2/-tatic,  TF«?/-chusett,  but 
TFor-tatic,  TFor-chusett.  It  made  us  ashamed 
of  our  tame  and  civil  pronunciation,  and  we 
looked  upon  them  as  born  and  bred  farther  west 
than  we.  Their  tongues  had  a  more  generous 
accent  than  ours,  as  if  breath  was  cheaper  where 
they  wagged.  A  countryman,  who  speaks  but 
seldom,  talks  copiously,  as  it  were,  as  his  wife 


A   WALK   TO   WACHUSETT.  79 

sets  cream  and  cheese  before  you  without  stint. 
Before  noon  we  had  reached  the  highlands  over 
looking  the  valley  of  Lancaster,  (affording  the 
first  fair  and  open  prospect  into  the  west,)  and 
there,  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  in  the  shade  of  some 
oaks,  near  to  where  a  spring  bubbled  out  from 
a  leaden  pipe,  we  rested  during  the  heat  of  the 
day,  reading  Virgil,  and  enjoying  the  scenery. 
It  was  such  a  place  as  one  feels  to  be  on  the 
outside  of  the  earth,  for  from  it  we  could,  in 
some  measure,  see  the  form  and  structure  of  the 
globe.  There  lay  Wachusett,  the  object  of  our 
journey,  lowering  upon  us  with  unchanged  pro 
portions,  though  with  a  less  ethereal  aspect  than 
had  greeted  our  morning  gaze,  while  further 
north,  in  successive  order,  slumbered  its  sister 
mountains  along  the  horizon. 

We  could  get  no  further  into  the  .ZEneid  than 

—  atque  altas  moenia  Romce, 
—  and  the  wall  of  high  Rome, 

before  we  were  constrained  to  reflect  by  what 
myriad  tests  a  work  of  genius  has  to  be  tried ; 
that  Virgil,  away  in  Rome,  two  thousand  years 
off,  should  have  to  unfold  his  meaning,  the  in 
spiration  of  Italian  vales,  to  the  pilgrim  on  New 
England  hills.  This  life  so  raw  and  modern, 
that  so  civil  and  ancient ;  and  yet  we  read  Vir 
gil,  mainly  to  be  reminded  of  the  identity  of 
human  nature  in  all  ages,  and,  by  the  poet's 


80  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

own  account,  we  are  both  the  children  of  a 
late  age,  and  live  equally  under  the  reign  of 
Jupiter. 

"  He  shook  honey  from  the  leaves,  and  removed  fire, 
And  stayed  the  wine,  everywhere  flowing  in  rivers  ; 
That  experience,  by  meditating,  might  invent  various  arts 
By  degrees,  and  seek  the  blade  of  corn  in  furrows, 
And  strike  out  hidden  fire  from  the  veins  of  the  flint." 

The  old  world  stands  serenely  behind  the 
new,  as  one  mountain  yonder  towers  behind 
another,  more  dim  and  distant.  Rome  imposes 
her  story  still  upon  this  late  generation.  The 
very  children  in  the  school  we  had  that  morn 
ing  passed,  had  gone  through  her  wars,  and 
recited  her  alarms,  ere  they  had  heard  of  the 
wars  of  neighboring  Lancaster.  The  roving 
eye  still  rests  inevitably  on  her  hills,  and  she 
still  holds  up  the  skirts  of  the  sky  on  that  side, 
and  makes  the  past  remote. 

The  lay  of  the  land  hereabouts  is  well  wor 
thy  the  attention  of  the  traveller.  The  hill  on 
which  we  were  resting  made  part  of  an  exten 
sive  range,  running  from  southwest  to  north 
east,  across  the  country,  and  separating  the 
waters  of  the  Nashua  from  those  of  the  Con 
cord,  whose  banks  we  had  left  in  the  morning  . 
and  by  bearing  in  mind  this  fact,  we  could  ea 
sily  determine  whither  each  brook  was  bourn? 
that  crossed  our  path.  Parallel  to  this,  and  fif 


A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT.  81 

teen  miles  further  west,  beyond  the  deep  and 
broad  valley  in  which  lie  Groton,  Shirley,  Lan 
caster,  and  Boylston,  runs  the  Wachusett  range, 
in  the  same  general  direction.  The  descent  into 
the  valley  on  the  Nashua  side,  is  by  far  the 
most  sudden  ;  and  a  couple  of  miles  brought 
us  to  the  southern  branch  of  the  Nashua,  a  shal 
low  but  rapid  stream,  flowing  between  high  and 
gravelly  banks.  But  we  soon  learned  that  there 
were  no  gclidcs  valles  into  which  we  had  de 
scended,  and  missing  the  coolness  of  the  morn 
ing  air,  feared  it  had  become  the  sun's  turn  to 
try  his  power  upon  us. 

"  The  sultry  sun  had  gained  the  middle  sky, 
And  not  a  tree,  and  not  an  herb  was  nigh." 

and  with  melancholy  pleasure  we  echoed  the 
melodious  plaint  of  our  fellow-traveller,  Hassan, 
in  the  desert,  — 

"  Sad  was  the  hour,  and  luckless  was  the  day, 
When  first  from  Schiraz'  walls  I  bent  my  way." 

The  air  lay  lifeless  between  the  hills,  as  in  a 
seething  caldron,  with  no  leaf  stirring,  and  in 
stead  of  the  fresh  odor  of  grass  and  clover,  with 
which  we  had  before  been  regaled,  the  dry  scent 
of  every  herb  seemed  merely  medicinal.  Yield 
ing,  therefore,  to  the  heat,  we  strolled  into  the 
woods,  and  along  the  course  of  a  rivulet,  on 
whose  banks  we  loitered,  observing  at  our  leis- 


82  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

ure  the  products  of  these  new  fields.  He  who 
traverses  the  woodland  paths,  at  this  season, 
will  have  occasion  to  remember  the  small  droop 
ing  bell-like  flowers  and  slender  red  stem  of  the 
dogs-bane,  and  the  coarser  stem  and  berry  of  the 
poke,  which  are  both  common  in  remoter  and 
wilder  scenes ;  and  if  "  the  sun  casts  such  a  re 
flecting  heat  from  the  sweet  fern,"  as  makes  him 
faint,  when  he  is  climbing  the  bare  hills,  as  they 
complained  who  first  penetrated  into  these  parts, 
the  cool  fragrance  of  the  swamp  pink  restores 
him  again,  when  traversing  the  valleys  between. 
As  we  went  on  our  way  late  in  the  afternoon, 
we  refreshed  ourselves  by  bathing  our  feet  in 
every  rill  that  crossed  the  road,  and  anon,  as 
we  were  able  to  walk  in  the  shadows  of  the 
hills,  recovered  our  morning  elasticity.  Passing 
through  Sterling,  we  reached  the  banks  of  the 
Stillwater,  in  the  western  part  of  the  town,  at 
evening,  where  is  a  small  village  collected.  We 
fancied  that  there  was  already  a  certain  western 
look  about  this  place,  a  smell  of  pines  and  roar 
of  water,  recently  confined  by  dams,  belying  its 
name,  which  were  exceedingly  grateful.  When 
the  first  inroad  has  been  made,  a  few  acres  lev 
elled,  and  a  few  houses  erected,  the  forest  looks 
wilder  than  ever.  Left  to  herself,  nature  is  al 
ways  more  or  less  civilized,  and  delights  in 
a  certain  refinement;  but  where  the  axe  has 


A  WALK   TO   WACHUSETT.  83 

encroached  upon  the  edge  of  the  forest,  the 
dead  and  unsightly  limbs  of  the  pine,  which  she 
had  concealed  with  green  banks  of  verdure,  are 
exposed  to  sight.  This  village  had,  as  yet,  no 
post-office,  nor  any  settled  name.  In  the  small 
villages  which  we  entered,  the  villagers  gazed 
after  us,  with  a  complacent,  almost  compassion 
ate  look,  as  if  we  were  just  making  our  debut  in 
the  world  at  a  late  hour.  "  Nevertheless,"  did 
they  seem  to  say,  "  come  and  study  us,  and  learn 
men  and  manners."  So  is  each  one's  world  but 
a  clearing  in  the  forest,  so  much  open  and  in 
closed  ground.  The  landlord  had  not  yet  re 
turned  from  the  field  with  his  men,  and  the 
cows  had  yet  to  be  milked.  But  we  remembered 
the  inscription  on  the  wall  of  the  Swedish  inn, 
"  You  will  find  at  Trolhate  excellent  bread, 
meat,  and  wine,  provided  you  bring  them  with 
you,"  and  were  contented.  But  I  must  confess 
it  did  somewhat  disturb  our  pleasure,  in  this 
withdrawn  spot,  to  have  our  own  village  news 
paper  handed  us  by  our  host,  as  if  the  greatest 
charm  the  country  offered  to  the  traveller  was 
the  facility  of  communication  with  the  town. 
Let  it  recline  on  its  own  everlasting  hills,  and 
not  be  looking  out  from  their  summits  for  some 
petty  Boston  or  New  York  in  the  horizon. 

At  intervals  we  heard  the  murmuring  of  wa 
ter,   and  the   slumberous    breathing  of  crickets 


84  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

throughout  the  night ;  and  left  the  inn  the  next 
morning  in  the  gray  twilight,  after  it  had  been 
hallowed  by  the  night  air,  and  when  only  the 
innocent  cows  were  stirring,  with  a  kind  of  re 
gret.  It  was  only  four  miles  to  the  base  of 
the  mountain,  and  the  scenery  was  already  more 
picturesque.  Our  road  lay  along  the  course  cf 
the  Stillwater,  which  was  brawling  at  the  bottom 
of  a  deep  ravine,  filled  with  pines  and  rocks, 
tumbling  fresh  from  the  mountains,  so  soon, 
alas !  to  commence  its  career  of  usefulness.  At 
first,  a  cloud  hung  between  us  and  the  summit, 
but  it  was  soon  blown  away.  As  we  gathered 
the  raspberries,  which  grew  abundantly  by  the 
roadside,  we  fancied  that  that  action  was  con 
sistent  with  a  lofty  prudence,  as  if  the  traveller 
who  ascends  into  a  mountainous  region  should 
fortify  himself  by  eating  of  such  light  ambrosial 
fruits  as  grow  there ;  and,  drinking  of  the  springs 
which  gush  out  from  the  mountain  sides,  as  he 
gradually  inhales  the  subtler  and  purer  atmos 
phere  of  those  elevated  places,  thus  propitiating 
the  mountain  gods,  by  a  sacrifice  of  their  own 
fruits.  The  gross  products  of  the  plains  and 
valleys  are  for  such  as  dwell  therein;  but  it 
seemed  to  us  that  the  juices  of  this  berry  had 
relation  to  the  thin  air  of  the  mountain-tops. 

In  due  time  we  began  to  ascend  the  moun 
tain,  passing,  first,  through  a  grand  sugar  maple- 


A   WALK  TO  WACHUSETT.  85 

wood,  which  bore  the  marks  of  the  augur,  then 
a  denser  forest,  which  gradually  became  dwarfed, 
till  there  were  no  trees  whatever.  We  at  length 
pitched  our  tent  on  the  summit.  It  is  but  nine 
teen  hundred  feet  above  the  village  of  Princeton, 
and  three  thousand  above  the  level  of  the  sea ; 
but  by  this  slight  elevation  it  is  infinitely  re 
moved  from  the  plain,  and  when  we  reached  it, 
we  felt  a  sense  of  remoteness,  as  if  we  had 
travelled  into  distant  regions,  to  Arabia  Petrea, 
or  the  farthest  east.  A  robin  upon  a  staff,  was 
the  highest  object  in  sight.  Swallows  were 
flying  about  us,  and  the  chewink  and  cuckoo 
were  heard  near  at  hand.  The  summit  consists 
of  a  few  acres,  destitute  of  trees,  covered  with 
bare  rocks,  interspersed  with  blueberry  bushes, 
raspberries,  gooseberries,  strawberries,  moss,  and 
a  fine  wiry  grass.  The  common  yellow  lily,  and 
dwarf-cornel,  grow  abundantly  in  the  crevices 
of  the  rocks.  This  clear  space,  which  is  gently 
rounded,  is  bounded  a  few  feet  lower  by  a  thick 
shrubbery  of  oaks,  with  maples,  aspens,  beeches, 
cherries,  and  occasionally  a  mountain-ash  inter 
mingled,  among  which  we  found  the  bright  blue 
berries  of  the  Solomon's  Seal,  and  the  fruit  of 
the  pyrola.  From  the  foundation  of  a  wooden 
observatory,  which  was  formerly  erected  on  the 
highest  point,  forming  a  rude,  hollow  structure 
of  stone,  a  dozen  feet  in  diameter,  and  five  or 


86  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

six  in  height,  we  could  see  Monadriock,  in 
simple  grandeur,  in  the  northwest,  rising  nearly 
a  thousand  feet  higher,  still  the  "  far  blue  moun 
tain,"  though  with  an  altered  profile.  The 
first  day  the  weather  was  so  hazy  that  it 
was  in  vain  we  endeavored  to  unravel  the  ob 
scurity.  It  was  like  looking  into  the  sky  again, 
and  the  patches  of  forest  here  and  there  seemed 
to  flit  like  clouds  over  a  lower  heaven.  As  to 
voyagers  of  an  aerial  Polynesia,  the  earth  seemed 
like  a  larger  island  in  the  ether ;  on  every  side, 
even  as  low  as  we.  the  sky  shutting  down,  like 
an  unfathomable  deep,  around  it,  a  blue  Pacific 
island,  where  who  knows  what  islanders  in 
habit  ?  and  as  we  sail  near  its  shores  we  see  the 
waving  of  trees,  and  hear  the  lowing  of  kine. 

We  read  Virgil  and  Wordsworth  in  our  tent, 
with  new  pleasure  there,  while  waiting  for  a 
clearer  atmosphere,  nor  did  the  weather  prevent 
our  appreciating  the  simple  truth  and  beauty  of 
Peter  Bell : 

.  "  And  he  had  lain  beside  his  asses, 
On  lofty  Cheviot  hills." 

"  And  he  had  trudged  through  Yorkshire  dales, 
Among  the  rocks  and  winding  scars, 
Where  deep  and  low  the  hamlets  lie 
Beneath  their  little  patch  of  sky, 
And  little  lot  of  stars." 

Who  knows  but  this  hill  may  one  day  be  a 


A   WALK  TO   WACHUSETT.  87 

Helvellyn,  or  even  a  Parnassus,  and  the  Muses 
haunt  here,  and  other  Homers  frequent  the 
neighboring  plains, 

Not  unconcerned  Wachusett  rears  his  head 
Above  the  field,  so  late  from  nature  won, 

With  patient  brow  reserved,  as  one  who  read 
New  annals  in  the  history  of  man. 

The  blue-berries  which  the  mountain  afforded, 
added  to  the  milk  we  had  brought,  made  our 
frugal  supper,  while  for  entertainment  the  even 
song  of  the  wood-thrush  rung  along  the  ridge. 
Our  eyes  rested  on  no  painted  ceiling  nor  car 
peted  hall,  but  on  skies  of  nature's  painting, 
and  hills  and  forests  of  her  embroidery.  Be 
fore  sunset,  we  rambled  along  the  ridge  to  the 
north,  while  a  hawk  soared  still  above  us.  It 
was  a  place  where  gods  might  wander,  so  sol 
emn  and  solitary,  and  removed  from  all  conta 
gion  with  the  plain.  As  the  evening  came  on, 
the  haze  was  condensed  in  vapor,  and  the  land 
scape  became  more  distinctly  visible,  and  nu 
merous  sheets  of  water  were  brought  to  light. 

Et  jam  summa  procul  villarum  culmina  fumant, 
Majoresque  cadunt  altis  de  montibus  umbra?. 

And  now  the  tops  of  the  villas  smoke  afar  off, 

And  the  shadows  fall  longer  from  the  high  mountains. 

As  we  stood  on  the  stone  tower  while  the  sun 
was  setting,  we  saw  the  shades  of  night  creep 


88  A  WALK  TO   WACHUSETT. 

gradually  over  the  valleys  of  the  east,  and  the 
inhabitants  went  into  their  houses,  and  shut 
their  doors,  while  the  moon  silently  rose  up,  and 
took  possession  of  that  part.  And  then  the 
same  scene  was  repeated  on  the  west  side,  as 
far  as  the  Connecticut  and  the  Green  Moun 
tains,  and  the  sun's  rays  fell  on  us  two  alone, 
of  all  New  England  men. 

It  was  the  night  but  one  before  the  full  of  the 
moon,  so  bright  that  we  could  see  to  read  dis 
tinctly  by  moonlight,  and  in  the  evening  strolled 
over  the  summit  without  danger.  There  was, 
by  chance,  a  fire  blazing  on  Monadnock  that 
night,  which  lighted  up  the  whole  western  hori 
zon,  and  by  making  us  aware  of  a  community 
of  mountains,  made  our  position  seem  less  soli 
tary.  But  at  length  the  wind  drove  us  to  the 
shelter  of  our  tent,  and  we  closed  its  door  for 
the  night,  and  fell  asleep. 

It  was  thrilling  to  hear  the  wind  roar  over  the 
rocks,  at  intervals  when  we  waked,  for  it  had 
grown  quite  cold  and  windy.  The  night  was  in 
its  elements,  simple  even  to  majesty  in  that  bleak 
place, —  a  bright  moonlight  and  a  piercing  wind. 
It  was  at  no  time  darker  than  twilight  within 
the  tent,  and  we  could  easily  see  the  moon 
through  its  transparent  roof  as  we  lay  ;  for  there 
was  the  moon  still  above  us,  with  Jupiter  and 
Saturn  on  either  hand,  looking  down  on  Wachu- 


A   WALK  TO   WACIIUSETT.  89 

sett,  and  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  know  that  they 
were  our  fellow-travellers  still,  as  high  and  out 
of  our  reach  as  our  own  destiny.  Truly  the  stars 
were  given  for  a  consolation  to  man.  We  should 
not  know  but  our  life  were  fated  to  be  always 
grovelling,  but  it  is  permitted  to  behold  them,  and 
surely  they  are  deserving  of  a  fair  destiny.  We 
see  laws  which  never  fail,  of  whose  failure  we 
never  conceived  ;  and  their  lamps  burn  all  the 
night,  too,  as  well  as  all  day, —  so  rich  and  lavish 
is  that  nature  which  can  afford  this  superfluity 
of  light. 

The  morning  twilight  began  as  soon  as  the 
moon  had  set,  and  we  arose  and  kindled  our  fire, 
whose  blaze  might  have  been  seen  for  thirty 
miles  around.  As  the  daylight  increased,  it  was 
remarkable  how  rapidly  the  wind  went  down. 
There  was  no  dew  on  the  summit,  but  coldness 
supplied  its  place.  When  the  dawn  had  reached 
its  prime,  we  enjoyed  the  view  of  a  distinct  hori 
zon  line,  and  could  fancy  ourselves  at  sea,  and 
the  distant  hills  the  waves  in  the  horizon,  as  seen 
from  the  deck  of  a  vessel.  The  cherry-birds  flit 
ted  around  us,  the  nuthatch  and  flicker  were 
heard  among  the  bushes,  the  titmouse  perched 
within  a  few  feet,  and  the  song  of  the  wood- 
thrush  again  rung  along  the  ridge.  At  length 
we  saw  the  sun  rise  up  out  of  the  sea,  and  shine 
on  Massachusetts ;  and  from  this  moment  the  at- 


90  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

mosphere  grew  more  and  more  transparent  till 
the  time  of  our  departure,  and  we  began  to  real 
ize  the  extent  of  the  view,  and  how  the  earth, 
in  some  degree,  answered  to  the  heavens  in 
breadth,  the  white  villages  to  the  constellations 
in  the  sky.  There  was  little  of  the  sublimity 
and  grandeur  which  belong  to  mountain  scenery, 
but  an  immense  landscape  to  ponder  on  a  sum 
mer's  day.  We  could  see  how  ample  and  roomy 
is  nature.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  there 
was  little  life  in  the  landscape;  the  few  birds 
that  flitted  past  did  not  crowd.  The  travellers 
on  the  remote  highways,  which  intersect  the 
country  on  every  side,  had  no  fellow-travellers 
for  miles,  before  or  behind.  On  every  side,  the 
eye  ranged  over  successive  circles  of  towns,  ris 
ing  one  above  another,  like  the  terraces  of  a 
vineyard,  till  they  were  lost  in  the  horizon. 
Wachusett  is,  in  fact,  the  observatory  of  the 
State.  There  lay  Massachusetts,  spread  out  be 
fore  us  in  its  length  and  breadth,  like  a  map. 
There  was  the  level  horizon,  which  told  of  the 
sea  on  the  east  and  south,  the  well-known  hills 
of  New  Hampshire  on  the  north,  and  the  misty 
summits  of  the  Hoosac  and  Green  Mountains, 
first  made  visible  to  us  the  evening  before,  blue 
and  unsubstantial,  like  some  bank  of  clouds 
which  the  morning  wind  would  dissipate,  on  the 
northwest  and  west.  These  last  distant  ranges, 


A   WALK  TO   WACIIUSETT.  91 

on  which  the  eye  rests  unwearied,  commence 
with  an  abrupt  boulder  in  the  north,  beyond  the 
Connecticut,  and  travel  southward,  with  three  or 
four  peaks  dimly  seen.  But  Monadnock,  rear 
ing  its  masculine  front  in  the  northwest,  is  the 
grandest  feature.  As  we  beheld  it,  wre  knew 
that  it  was  the  height  of  land  between  the  two 
rivers,  on  this  side  the  valley  of  the  Merrimack, 
or  that  of  the  Connecticut,  fluctuating  with 
their  blue  seas  of  air,  —  these  rival  vales,  al 
ready  teeming  with  Yankee  men  along  their 
respective  streams,  born  to  what  destiny  who 
shall  tell  ?  Watatic,  and  the  neighboring  hills 
in  this  State  and  in  New  Hampshire,  are  a 
continuation  of  the  same  elevated  range  on 
which  we  were  standing.  But  that  New  Hamp 
shire  bluff, —  that  promontory  of  a  State, — low 
ering  day  and  night  on  this  our  State  of  Massa 
chusetts,  will  longest  haunt  our  dreams. 

'  o 

We  could,  at  length,  realize  the  place  moun 
tains  occupy  on  the  land,  and  how  they  come 
into  the  general  scheme  of  the  universe.  When 
firs"  we  climb  their  summits  and  observe  their 
lesser  irregularities,  we  do  not  give  credit  to  the 
comprehensive  intelligence  which  shaped  them  ; 
but  when  afterward  we  behold  their  outlines  in 
the  -  horizon,  we  confess  that  the  hand  which 
moulded  their  opposite  slopes,  making  one  to 
"balance  the  other,  worked  round  a  deep  centre, 


92  A    WALK  TO  WACHD^ETT. 

and  was  privy  to  the  plan  of  the  universe.  So 
is  the  least  part  of  nature  in  its  bearings  refer 
red  to  all  space.  These  lesser  mountain  ranges, 
as  well  as  the  Alleghanies,  run  from  northeast 
to  southwest,  and  parallel  with  these  mountain 
streams  are  the  more  fluent  rivers,  answering  to 
the  general  direction  of  the  coast,  the  bank  of 
the  great  ocean  stream  itself.  Even  the  clouds, 
with  their  thin  bars,  fall  into  the  same  direction 
by  preference,  and  such  even  is  the  course  of 
the  prevailing  winds,  and  the  migration  of  men 
and  birds.  A  mountain-chain  determines  many 
things  for  the  statesman  and  philosopher.  The 
improvements  of  civilization  rather  creep  along 
its  sides  than  cross  its  summit.  How  often  is  it 
a  barrier  to  prejudice  and  fanaticism  ?  In  pass 
ing  over  these  heights  of  land,  through  their  thin 
atmosphere,  the  follies  of  the  plain  are  refined 
and  purified ;  and  as  many  species  of  plants  do 
not  scale  their  summits,  so  many  species  of  folly 
no  doubt  do  not  cross  the  Alleghanies ;  it  is  only 
the  hardy  mountain  plant  that  creeps  quite  over 
the  ridge,  and  descends  into  the  valley  beyond. 

We  get  a  dim  notion  of  the  flight  of  birds, 
especially  of  such  as  fly  high  in  the  air,  by 
having  ascended  a  mountain.  We  can  now  see 
what  landmarks  mountains  are  to  their  migra 
tions  ;  how  the  Catskills  and  Highlands  have 
hardly  sunk  to  them,  when  Wachusett  and 


A   WALK  TO  WACHUSETT.  93 

Monadnock  open  a  passage  to  the  northeast; 
how  they  are  guided,  too,  in  their  course  by  the 
rivers  and  valleys ;  and  who  knows  but  by  the 
stars,  as  well  as  the  mountain  ranges,  and  not 
by  the  petty  landmarks  which  we  use.  The 
bird  whose  eye  takes  in  the  Green  Mountains 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  ocean  on  the  other,  need 
not  be  at  a  loss  to  find  its  way. 

At  noon  we  descended  the  mountain,  and 
having  returned  to  the  abodes  of  men,  turned 
our  faces  to  the  east  again ;  measuring  our  prog 
ress,  from  time  to  time,  by  the  more  ethereal 
hues  which  the  mountain  assumed.  Passing 
swiftly  through  Stillwater  and  Sterling,  as  with 
a  downward  impetus,  we  found  ourselves  almost 
at  home  again  in  the  green  meadows  of  Lancas 
ter,  so  like  our  own  Concord,  for  both  are  wa 
tered  by  two  streams  which  unite  near  their 
centres,  and  have  many  other  features  in  com 
mon.  There  is  an  unexpected  refinement  about 
this  scenery ;  level  prairies  of  great  extent,  inter 
spersed  with  elms  and  hop-fields  and  groves  of 
trees,  give  it  almost  a  classic  appearance.  This, 
it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  scene  of  Mrs. 
Rowlandson's  capture,  and  of  other  events  in  the 
Indian  wars,  but  from  this  July  afternoon,  and 
under  that  mild  exterior,  those  times  seemed  as 
remote  as  the  irruption  of  the  Goths.  They 
were  the  dark  age  of  New  England.  On  be- 


94  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

holding  a  picture  of  a  New  England  village  as 
it  then  appeared,  with  a  fair  open  prospect,  and 
a  light  on  trees  and  river,  as  if  it  were  broad 
noon,  we  find  we  had  not  thought  the  sun  shone 
in  those  days,  or  that  men  lived  in  broad  day 
light  then.  We  do  not  imagine  the  sun  shining 
on  hill  and  valley  during  Philip's  war,  nor  on 
the  war-path  of  Paugus,  or  Standish,  or  Church, 
or  Lovell,  with  serene  summer  weather,  but  a 
dim  twilight  or  night  did  those  events  transpire 
in.  They  must  have  fought  in  the  shade  of  their 
own  dusky  deeds. 

At  length,  as  we  plodded  along  the  dusty 
roads,  our  thoughts  became  as  dusty  as  they ; 
all  thought  indeed  stopped,  thinking  broke  down, 
or  proceeded  only  passively  in  a  sort  of  rhythmi 
cal  cadence  of  the  confused  material  of  thought, 
and  we  found  ourselves  mechanically  repeating 
some  familiar  measure  which  timed  with  our 
tread ;  some  verse  of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads, 
for  instance,  which  one  can  recommend  to  travel 

by- 

"  Swearers  are  swift,  sayd  lyttle  John, 

As  the  wind  blows  over  the  hill ; 
For  if  it  be  never  so  loud  this  night, 

To-morrow  it  may  be  still." 

And  so  it  went  up  hill  and  down  till  a  stone 
interrupted  the  line,  when  a  new  verse  was 
chosen. 


A  WALK   TO   WACHUSETT.  95 

"  His  shoote  it  was  but  loosely  shot, 
Yet  flewe  not  the  arrowe  in  vaine, 

For  it  met  one  of  the  sheriffe's  men, 
And  Williani-a-Trent  was  slaine." 

There  is,  however,  this  consolation  to  the 
most  way-worn  traveller,  upon  the  dustiest  road, 
that  the  path  his  feet  describe  is  so  perfectly 
symbolical  of  human  life,  —  now  climbing  the 
hills,  now  descending  into  the  vales.  From  the 
summits  he  beholds  the  heavens  and  the  horizon, 
from  the  vales  he  looks  up  to  the  heights  again. 
He  is  treading  his  old  lessons  still,  and  though  he 
may  be  very  weary  and  travel-worn,  it  is  yet 
sincere  experience. 

Leaving  the  Nashua,  we  changed  our  route  a 
little,  and  arrived  at  Stillriver  Village,  in  the 
western  part  of  Harvard,  just  as  the  sun  was  set 
ting.  From  this  place,  which  lies  to  the  north 
ward,  upon  the  western  slope  of  the  same  range 
of  hills  on  which  we  had  spent  the  noon  before, 
in  the  adjacent  town,  the  prospect  is  beautiful, 
and  the  grandeur  of  the  mountain  outlines  un 
surpassed.  There  was  such  a  repose  and  quiet 
here  at  this  hour,  as  if  the  very  hill-sides  were 
enjoying  the  scene,  and  we  passed  slowly  along, 
looking  back  over  the  country  we  had  traversed, 
and  listening  to  the  evening  song  of  the  robin, 
we  could  not  help  contrasting  the  equanimity  of 
nature  with  the  bustle  and  impatience  of  man. 


96  A  WALK  TO  WACHUSETT. 

His  words  and  actions  presume  always  a  crisis 
near  at  hand,  but  she  is  forever  silent  and  unpre 
tending. 

And  now  that  we  have  returned  to  the  desul 
tory  life  of  the  plain,  let  us  endeavor  to  import 
a  little  of  that  mountain  grandeur  into  it.  We 
will  remember  within  what  walls  we  lie,  and 
understand  that  this  level  life  too  has  its  summit, 
and  why  from  the  mountain-top  the  deepest  val 
leys  have  a  tinge  of  blue ;  that  there  is  elevation 
in  every  hour,  as  no  part  of  the  earth  is  so  low 
that  the  heavens  may  not  be  seen  from,  and  we 
have  only  to  stand  on  the  summit  of  our  hour  to 
command  an  uninterrupted  horizon. 

We  rested  that  night  at  Harvard,  and  the  next 
morning,  while  one  bent  his  steps  to  the  nearer 
village  of  Groton,  the  other  took  his  separate  and 
solitary  way  to  the  peaceful  meadows  of  Con 
cord  ;  but  let  him  not  forget  to  record  the  brave 
hospitality  of  a  farmer  and  his  wife,  who  gener 
ously  entertained  him  at  their  board,  though  the 
poor  wayfarer  could  only  congratulate  the  one 
on  the  continuance  of  hayweather,  and  silently 
accept  the  kindness  of  the  other.  Refreshed  by 
this  instance  of  generosity,  no  less  than  by  the 
substantial  viands  set  before  him,  he  pushed  for 
ward  with  new  vigor,  and  reached  the  banks  of 
the  Concord  before  the  sun  had  climbed  many 
degrees  into  the  heavens. 


THE    LANDLORD. 

[1843.] 

UNDER  the  one  word,  house,  are  included  the 
school-house,  the  alms-house,  the  jail,  the  tavern, 
the  dwelling-house  ;  and  the  meanest  shed  or 
cave  in  which  men  live  contains  the  elements  of 
all  these.  But  nowhere  on  the  earth  stands  the 
entire  and  perfect  house.  The  Parthenon,  St. 
Peter's,  the  Gothic  minster,  the  palace,  the  hovel, 
are  but  imperfect  executions  of  an  imperfect 
idea.  Who  would  dwell  in  them  ?  Perhaps  to 
the  eye  of  the  gods,  the  cottage  is  more  holy 
than  the  Parthenon,  for  they  look  down  with  no 
especial  favor  upon  the  shrines  formally  ded 
icated  to  them,  and  that  should  be  the  most 
sacred  roof  which  shelters  most  of  humanity. 
Surely,  then,  the  gods  who  are  most  interested 
in  the  human  race  preside  over  the  Tavern, 
where  especially  men  congregate.  Methinks  I 
see  the  thousand  shrines  erected  to  Hospitality 
shining  afar  in  all  countries,  as  well  Mahometan 
and  Jewish,  as  Christian,  khans,  and  caravansa 
ries,  and  inns,  whither  all  pilgrims  without  dis 
tinction  resort. 

7 


98  THE  LANDLORD. 

Likewise  we  look  in  vain,  east  or  west  over 
the  earth,  to  find  the  perfect  man;  bat  each  rep 
resents  only  some  particular  excellence.  The 
Landlord  is  a  man  of  more  open  and  general 
sympathies,  who  possesses  a  spirit  of  hospitality 
which  is  its  own  reward,  and  feeds  and  shelters 
men  from  pure  love  of  the  creatures.  To  be 
sure,  this  profession  is  as  often  filled  by  imper 
fect  characters,  and  such  as  have  sought  it  from 
unworthy  motives,  as  any  other,  but  so  much 
the  more  should  we  prize  the  true  and  honest 
Landlord  when  we  meet  with  him. 

Who  has  not  imagined  to  himself  a  country  inn, 
where  the  traveller  shall  really  feel  in,  and  at  home, 
and  at  his  public-house,  who  was  before  at  his 
private  house ;  whose  host  is  indeed  a  host,  and 
a  lord  of  the  land,  a  self-appointed  brother  of  his 
race ;  called  to  his  place,  beside,  by  all  the  winds 
of  heaven  and  his  good  genius,  as  truly  as  the 
preacher  is  called  to  preach ;  a  man  of  such  uni 
versal  sympathies,  and  so  broad  and  genial  a 
human  nature,  that  he  would  fain  sacrifice  the 
tender  but  narrow  ties  of  private  friendship,  to  a 
broad,  sunshiny,  fair-weather-and-foul  friendship 
for  his  race ;  who  loves  men,  not  as  a  philoso 
pher,  with  philanthropy,  nor  as  an  overseer  of 
the  poor,  with  charity,  but  by  a  necessity  of  his 
nature,  as  he  loves  dogs  and  horses  ;  and  stand 
ing  at  his  open  door  from  morning  till  night, 


THE  LANDLORD.  99 

would  fain  see  more  and  more  of  them  come 
along  the  highway,  and  is  never  satiated.  To 
him  the  sun  and  moon  are  but  travellers,  the  one 
by  day  and  the  other  by  night ;  and  they  too 
patronize  his  house.  To  his  imagination  all 
things  travel  save  his  sign-post  and  himself;  and 
though  you  may  be  his  neighbor  for  years,  he 
will  show  you  only  the  civilities  of  the  road. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  while  nations  and  indi 
viduals  are  alike  selfish  and  exclusive,  he  loves 
all  men  equally  ;  and  if  he  treats  his  nearest 
neighbor  as  a  stranger,  since  he  has  invited  all 
nations  to  share  his  hospitality,  the  farthest  trav 
elled  is  in  some  measure  kindred  to  him  who 
takes  him  into  the  bosom  of  his  family. 

He  keeps  a  house  of  entertainment  at  the  sign 
of  the  Black  Horse  or  the  Spread  Eagle,  and  is 
known  far  and  wide,  and  his  fame  travels  with 
increasing  radius  every  year.  All  the  neigh 
borhood  is  in  his  interest,  and  if  the  traveller  ask 
how  far  to  a  tavern,  he  receives  some  such  an 
swer  as  this  :  "  Well,  sir,  there's  a  house  about 
three  miles  from  here,  where  they  haven't  taken 
down  their  sign  yet ;  but  it's  only  ten  miles  to 
Slocum's,  and  that's  a  capital  house,  both  for 
man  and  beast."  At  three  miles  he  passes  a 
cheerless  barrack,  standing  desolate  behind  its 
sign-post,  neither  public  nor  private,  and  has 
glimpses  of  a  discontented  couple  who  have 


100  THE  LANDLOKD. 

mistaken  their  calling.  At  ten  miles  see  where 
the  Tavern  stands,  —  really  an  entertaining  pros 
pect, —  so  public  and  inviting  that  only  the  rain 
and  snow  do  not  enter.  It  is  no  gay  pavilion, 
made  of  bright  stuffs,  and  furnished  with  nuts 
and  gingerbread,  but  as  plain  and  sincere  as  a 
caravansary ;  located  in  no  Tarry  town,  where 
you  receive  only  the  civilities  of  commerce,  but 
far  in  the  fields  it  exercises  a  primitive  hospital 
ity,  amid  the  fresh  scent  of  new  hay  and  rasp 
berries,  if  it  be  summer  time,  and  the  tinkling  of 
cow-bells  from  invisible  pastures ;  for  it  is  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  and  the  newest 
milk  courses  in  a  broad,  deep  stream  across  the 
premises. 

In  these  retired  places  the  tavern  is  first  of  all 
a  house  —  elsewhere,  last  of  all,  or  never,  —  and 
warms  and  shelters  its  inhabitants.  It  is  as  sim 
ple  and  sincere  in  its  essentials  as  the  caves  in 
which  the  first  men  dwelt,  but  it  is  also  as  open 
and  public.  The  traveller  steps  across  the  thresh 
old,  and  lo !  he  too  is  master,  for  he  only  can  be 
called  proprietor  of  the  house  here  who  behaves 
with  most  propriety  in  it.  The  Landlord  stands 
clear  back  in  nature,  to  my  imagination,  with 
his  axe  and  spade  felling  trees  and  raising  pota 
toes  with  the  vigor  of  a  pioneer ;  with  Prome 
thean  energy  making  nature  yield  her  increase  to 
supply  the  wants  of  so  many ;  and  he  is  not  so 


THE  LANDLORD.  101 

exhausted,  nor  of  so  short  a  stride,  but  that  he 
comes  forward  even  to  the  highway  to  this  wide 
hospitality  and  publicity.  Surely,  he  has  solved 
some  of  the  problems  of  life.  He  comes  in  at 
his  backdoor,  holding  a  log  fresh  cut  for  the 
hearth  upon  his  shoulder  with  one  hand,  while 
he  greets  the  newly  arrived  traveller  with  the 
other. 

Here  at  length  we  have  free  range,  as  not  in 
palaces,  nor  cottages,  nor  temples,  and  intrude 
nowhere.  All  the  secrets  of  housekeeping  are 
exhibited  to  the  eyes  of  men,  above  and  below, 
before  and  behind.  This  is  the  necessary  way 
to  live,  men  have  confessed,  in  these  days,  and 
shall  he  skulk  and  hide  ?  And  why  should  we 
have  any  serious  disgust  at  kitchens  ?  Perhaps 
they  are  the  holiest  recess  of  the  house.  There 
is  the  hearth,  after  all,  —  and  the  settle,  and  the 
fagots,  and  the  kettle,  and  the  crickets.  We 
have  pleasant  reminiscences  of  these.  They  are 
the  heart,  the  left  ventricle,  the  very  vital  part  of 
the  house.  Here  the  real  and  sincere  life  which 
we  meet  in  the  streets  was  actually  fed  and 
sheltered.  Here  burns  the  taper  that  cheers  the 
lonely  traveller  by  night,  and  from  this  hearth 
ascend  the  smokes  that  populate  the  valley  to 
his  eyes  by  day.  On  the  whole,  a  man  may  not 
be  so  little  ashamed  of  any  other  part  of  his 
house,  for  here  is  his  sincerity  and  earnest,  at 


102  THE  LANDLORD. 

least.  It  may  not  be  here  that  the  besoms  are 
plied  most,  —  it  is  not  here  that  they  need  to  be, 
for  dust  will  not  settle  on  the  kitchen  floor  more 
than  in  nature. 

Hence  it  will  not  do  for  the  Landlord  to  pos 
sess  too  fine  a  nature.  He  must  have  health 
above  the  common  accidents  of  life,  subject  to 
no  modern  fashionable  diseases  ;  but  no  taste, 
rather  a  vast  relish  or  appetite.  His  sentiments 
on  all  subjects  will  be  delivered  as  freely  as  the 
wind  blows  ;  there  is  nothing  private  or  individ 
ual  in  them,  though  still  original,  but  they  are 
public,  and  of  the  hue  of  the  heavens  over  his 
house,  —  a  certain  out-of-door  obviousness  and 
transparency  not  to  be  disputed.  What  he  does, 
his  manners  are  not  to  be  complained  of,  though 
abstractly  offensive,  for  it  is  what  man  does,  and 
in  him  the  race  is  exhibited.  When  he  eats,  he 
is  liver  and  bowels,  and  the  whole  digestive 
apparatus  to  the  company,  and  so  all  admit  the 
thing  is  done.  He  must  have  no  idiosyncrasies, 
no  particular  bents  or  tendencies  to  this  or  that, 
but  a  general,  uniform,  and  healthy  development, 
such  as  his  portly  person  indicates,  offering  him 
self  equally  on  all  sides  to  men.  He  is  not  one 
of  your  peaked  and  inhospitable  men  of  genius, 
with  particular  tastes,  but,  as  we  said  before, 
has  one  uniform  relish,  and  taste  which  never 
aspires  higher  than  a  tavern-sign,  or  the  cut  of 


THE   LANDLORD.  103 

a  weather-cock.  The  man  of  genius,  like  a  dog 
with  a  bone,  or  the  slave  who  has  swallowed  a 
diamond,  or  a  patient  with  the  gravel,  sits  afar 
and  retired,  off  the  road,  hangs  out  no  sign  of 
refreshment  for  man  and  beast,  but  says,  by  all 
possible  hints  and  signs,  I  wish  to  be  alone  — 
good-by  —  farewell.  But  the  landlord  can  af 
ford  to  live  without  privacy.  He  entertains  no 
private  thought,  he  cherishes  no  solitary  hour, 
no  Sabbath  day,  but  thinks,  —  enough  to  assert 
the  dignity  of  reason,  —  and  talks,  and  reads  the 
newspaper.  What  he  does  not  tell  to  one  trav 
eller,  he  tells  to  another.  He  never  wants  to  be 
alone,  but  sleeps,  wakes,  eats,  drinks,  sociably, 
still  remembering  his  race.  He  walks  abroad 
through  the  thoughts  of  men,  and  the  Iliad  and 
Shakspeare  are  tame  to  him,  who  hears  the  rude 
but  homely  incidents  of  the  road  from  every 
traveller.  The  mail  might  drive  through  his 
brain  in  the  midst  of  his  most  lonely  soliloquy, 
without  disturbing  his  equanimity,  provided  it 
brought  plenty  of  news  and  passengers.  There 
can  be  no  j5ro-fanity  where  there  is  no  fane  be 
hind,  and  the  whole  world  may  see  quite  round 
him.  Perchance  his  lines  have  fallen  to  him  in 
dustier  places,  and  he  has  heroically  sat  down 
where  two  roads  meet,  or  at  the  Four  Corners, 
or  the  Five  Points,  and  his  life  is  sublimely  triv 
ial  for  the  good  of  men.  The  dust  of  travel 


104  THE  LANDLORD. 

blows  ever  in  his  eyes,  and  they  preserve  their 
clear,  complacent  look.  The  hourlies  and  half- 
hourlies,  the  dailies  and  weeklies,  whirl  on  well- 
worn  tracks,  round  and  round  his  house,  as  if  it 
were  the  goal  in  the  stadium,  and  still  he  sits 
within  in  unruffled  serenity,  with  no  show  of 
retreat.  His  neighbor  dwells  timidly  behind  a 
screen  of  poplars  and  willows,  and  a  fence  with 
sheaves  of  spears  at  regular  intervals,  or  defended 
against  the  tender  palms  of  visitors  by  sharp 
spikes,  —  but  the  traveller's  wheels  rattle  over 
the  door-step  of  the  tavern,  and  he  cracks  his 
whip  in  the  entry.  He  is  truly  glad  to  see  you, 
and  sincere  as  the  bull's-eye  over  his  door.  The 
traveller  seeks  to  find,  wherever  he  goes,  some 
one  who  will  stand  in  this  broad  and  catholic  re 
lation  to  him,  who  will  be  an  inhabitant  of  the 
land  to  him  a  stranger,  and  represent  its  human 
nature,  as  the  rock  stands  for  its  inanimate  na 
ture  ;  and  this  is  he.  As  his  crib  furnishes  prov 
ender  for  the  traveller's  horse,  and  his  larder 
provisions  for  his  appetite,  so  his  conversation 
furnishes  the  necessary  aliment  to  his  spirits. 
He  knows  very  well  what  a  man  wants,  for  he 
is  a  man  himself,  and  as  it  were  the  farthest 
travelled,  though  he  has  never  stirred  from  his 
door.  He  understands  his  needs  and  destiny, 
He  would  be  well  fed  and  lodged,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  and  have  the  transient  sympathy  of  a 


THE  LANDLORD.  105 

cheerful  companion,  and  of  a  heart  which  always 
prophesies  fair  weather.  And  after  all  the  great 
est  men,  even,  want  much  more  the  sympathy 
which  every  honest  fellow  can  give,  than  that 
which  the  great  only  can  impart.  If  he  is  not 
the  most  upright,  let  us  allow  him  this  praise, 
that  he  is  the  most  downright  of  men.  He  has 
a  hand  to  shake  and  to  be  shaken,  and  takes  a 
sturdy  and  unquestionable  interest  in  you,  as  if 
he  had  assumed  the  care  of  you,  but  if  you  will 
break  your  neck,  he  will  even  give  you  the  best 
advice  as  to  the  method. 

The  great  poets  have  not  been  ungrateful  to 
their  landlords.  Mine  host  of  the  Tabard  Inn, 
in  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  was 
an  honor  to  his  profession  :  - 

"  A  semely  man  our  Hoste  was,  with  alle, 

For  to  ban  been  an  marshal  in  an  halle. 

A  large  man  he  was,  with  eyen  stepe  ; 

A  fairer  burgeis  is  ther  non  in  Chepe  : 

Bold  of  his  speche,  and  wise,  and  well  ytaught, 

And  of  manhood  him  lacked  righte  naught. 

Eke  thereto,  was  he  right  a  mery  man, 

And  after  souper  plaien  he  began, 

And  spake  of  mirthe  amonges  other  thinges, 

Whan  that  we  hadden  made  our  reckoninges." 

He  is  the  true  house-band,  and  centre  of  the 
company  —  of  greater  fellowship  and  practical 
social  talent  than  any.  He  it  is  that  proposes 


106  THE  LANDLORD. 

that  each  shall  tell  a  tale  to  while  away  the 
time  to  Canterbury,  and  leads  them  himself, 
and  concludes  with  his  own  tale :  — 

"  Now,  by  my  fader's  soule  that  is  ded, 

But  ye  be  mery,  smite th  of  my  bed  : 

Hold  up  your  hondes  withouten  more  speche." 

If  we  do  not  look  up  to  the  Landlord,  we 
look  round  for  him  on  all  emergencies,  for  he 
is  a  man  of  infinite  experience,  who  unites 
hands  with  wit.  He  is  a  more  public  character 
than  a  statesman,  —  a  publican,  and  not  conse 
quently  a  sinner ;  and  surely,  he,  if  any,  should 
be  exempted  from  taxation  and  military  duty. 

Talking  with  our  host  is  next  best  and  in 
structive  to  talking  with  one's  self.  It  is  a 
more  conscious  soliloquy ;  as  it  were,  to  speak 
generally,  and  try  what  we  would  say  provided 
we  had  an  audience.  He  has  indulgent  and 
open  ears,  and  does  not  require  petty  and  par 
ticular  statements.  "  Heigho  !  "  exclaims  the 
traveller.  Them's  my  sentiments,  thinks  mine 
host,  and  stands  ready  for  what  may  come 
next,  expressing  the  purest  sympathy  by  his 
demeanor.  "  Hot  as  blazes  !  "  says  the  other, 

"  Hard  weather,  sir,  —  not  much  stirring 

nowadays,"  says  he.  He  is  wiser  than  to  con 
tradict  his  guest  in  any  case ;  he  lets  him  go  on, 
he  lets  him  travel. 


THE  LANDLORD.  107 

The  latest  sitter  leaves  him  standing  far  in 
the  night,  prepared  to  live  right  on,  while  suns 
rise  and  set,  and  his  "  good  night  "  has  as  brisk 
a  sound  as  his  "  good  morning;"  and  the  earliest 
riser  finds  him  tasting  his  liquors  in  the  bar  ere 
flies  begin  to  buzz,  with  a  countenance  fresh  as 
the  morning  star  over  the  sanded  floor,  —  and 
not  as  one  who  had  watched  all  night  for  trav 
ellers.  And  yet,  if  beds  be  the  subject  of  con 
versation,  it  will  appear  that  no  man  has  been 
a  sounder  sleeper  in  his  time. 

Finally,  as  for  his  moral  character,  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  say,  that  he  has  no  grain  of  vice  or 
meanness  in  him,  but  represents  just  that  de 
gree  of  virtue  which  all  men  relish  without  be 
ing  obliged  to  respect.  He  is  a  good  man,  as 
his  bitters  are  good,  —  an  unquestionable  good 
ness.  Not  what  is  called  a  good  man,  —  good 
to  be  considered,  as  a  work  of  art  in  galleries 
and  museums,  —  but  a  good  fellow,  that  is, 
good^o  be  associated  with.  Who  ever  thought 
of  the  religion  of  an  innkeeper  —  whether  he  was 
joined  to  the  Church,  partook  of  the  sacrament, 
said  his  prayers,  feared  God,  or  the  like  ?  No 
doubt  he  has  had  his  experiences,  has  felt  a 
change,  and  is  a  firm  believer  in  the  persever 
ance  of  the  saints.  In  this  last,  we  suspect, 
does  the  peculiarity  of  his  religion  consist.  But 
he  keeps  an  inn,  and  not  a  conscience.  How 


108  THE  LANDLORD. 

many  fragrant  charities  and  sincere  social  vir 
tues  are  implied  in  this  daily  offering  of  him 
self  to  the  public.  He  cherishes  good  will  to 
all,  and  gives  the  wayfarer  as  good  and  honest 
advice  to  direct  him  on  his  road  as  the  priest. 

To  conclude,  the  tavern  will  compare  favor 
ably  with  the  church.  The  church  is  the  place 
where  prayers  and  sermons  are  delivered,  but 
the  tavern  is  where  they  are  to  take  effect,  and 
if  the  former  are  good,  the  latter  cannot  be  bad. 


A  WINTER  WALK. 

[1843.] 

THE  wind  has  gently  murmured  through  the 
blinds,  or  puffed  with  feathery  softness  against 
the  windows,  and  occasionally  sighed  like  a 
summer  zephyr  lifting  the  leaves  along,  the  live 
long  night.  The  meadow-mouse  has  slept  in 
his  snug  gallery  in  the  sod,  the  owl  has  sat  in  a 
hollow  tree  in  the  depth  of  the  swamp,  the  rab 
bit,  the  squirrel,  and  the  fox  have  all  been 
housed.  The  watch-dog  has  lain  quiet  on  the 
hearth,  and  the  cattle  have  stood  silent  in  their 
stalls.  The  earth  itself  has  slept,  as  it  were  its 
first,  not  its  last  sleep,  save  when  some  street- 
sign  or  wood-house  door  has  faintly  creaked 
upon  its  hinge,  cheering  forlorn  nature  at  her 
midnight  work,  —  the  only  sound  awake  twixt 
Venus  and  Mars,  —  advertising  us  of  a  remote 
inward  warmth,  a  divine  cheer  and  fellowship, 
where  gods  are  met  together,  but  where  it  is  very 
bleak  for  men  to  stand.  But  while  the  earth 
has  slumbered,  all  the  air  has  been  alive  with 
feathery  flakes  descending,  as  if  some  northern 


110  A  WINTER  WALK. 

Ceres  reigned,  showering  her  silvery  grain  over 
all  the  fields. 

We  sleep,  and  at  length  awake  to  the  still 
reality  of  a  winter  morning.  The  snow  lies 
warm  as  cotton  or  down  upon  the  window-sill ; 
the  broadened  sash  and  frosted  panes  admit  a 
dim  and  private  light,  which  enhances  the  snug 
cheer  within.  The  stillness  of  the  morning  is 
impressive.  The  floor  creaks  under  our  feet  as 
we  move  toward  the  window  to  look  abroad 
through  some  clear  space  over  the  fields.  We 
see  the  roofs  stand  under  their  snow  burden. 
From  the  eaves  and  fences  hang  stalactites  of 
snow,  and  in  the  yard  stand  stalagmites  cover 
ing  some  concealed  core.  The  trees  and  shrubs 
rear  white  arms  to  the  sky  on  every  side ;  and 
where  were  walls  and  fences,  we  see  fantastic 
forms  stretching  in  frolic  gambols  across  the 
dusky  landscape,  as  if  nature  had  strewn  her 
fresh  designs  over  the  fields  by  night  as  models 
for  man's  art. 

Silently  we  unlatch  the  door,  letting  the  drift 
fall  in,  and  step  abroad  to  face  the  cutting  air. 
Already  the  stars  have  lost  some  of  their  sparkle, 
and  a  dull,  leaden  mist  skirts  the  horizon.  A 
lurid  brazen  light  in  the  east  proclaims  the  ap 
proach  of  day,  while  the  western  landscape  is 
dim  and  spectral  still,  and  clothed  in  a  sombre 
Tartarian  light,  like  the  shadowy  realms.  They 


A   WINTER   WALK.  Ill 

are  Infernal  sounds  only  that  you  hear,  —  the 
crowing  of  cocks,  the  barking  of  dogs,  the  chop 
ping  of  wood,  the  lowing  of  kine,  all  seem  to 
come  from  Pluto's  barn-yard  and  beyond  the 
Styx;  —  not  for  any  melancholy  they  suggest, 
but  their  twilight  bustle  is  too  solemn  and  mys 
terious  for  earth.  The  recent  tracks  of  the  fox 
or  otter,  in  the  yard,  remind  us  that  each  hour 
of  the  night  is  crowded  with  events,  and  the 
primeval  nature  is  still  working  and  making 
tracks  in  the  snow.  Opening  the  gate,  we  tread 
briskly  along  the  lone  country  road,  crunching 
the  dry  and  crisped  snow  under  our  feet,  or 
aroused  by  the  sharp  clear  creak  of  the  wood- 
sled,  just  starting  for  the  distant  market,  from 
the  early  farmer's  door,  where  it  has  lain  the 
summer  long,  dreaming  amid  the  chips  and 
stubble ;  while  far  through  the  drifts  and  pow 
dered  windows  we  see  the  farmer's  early  candle, 
like  a  paled  star,  emitting  a  lonely  beam,  as  if 
some  severe  virtue  were  at  its  matins  there. 
And  one  by  one  the  smokes  begin  to  ascend 
from  the  chimneys  amidst  the  trees  and  snows. 

The  sluggish  smoke  curls  up  from  some  deep  dell, 
The  stiffened  air  exploring  in  the  dawn, 
And  making  slow  acquaintance  with  the  day 
Delaying  now  upon  its  heavenward  course, 
In  wreathed  letterings  dallying  with  itself, 
With  as  uncertain  purpose  and  slow  deed, 


A  WINTER  WALK. 

As  its  half-wakened  master  by  the  hearth, 
Whose  mind  still  slumbering  and  sluggish  thoughts 
Have  not  yet  swept  into  the  onward  current 
Of  the  new  day  ;  —  and  now  it  streams  afar, 
The  while  the  chopper  goes  with  step  direct, 
And  mind  intent  to  swing  the  early  axe. 

First  in  the  dusky  dawn  he  sends  abroad 
His  early  scout,  his  emissary,  smoke, 
The  earliest,  latest  pilgrim  from  the  roof, 
To  feel  the  frosty  air,  inform  the  day  ; 
And  while  he  crouches  still  beside  the  hearth, 
Nor  musters  courage  to  unbar  the  door, 
It  has  gone  down  the  glen  with  the  light  wind, 
And  o'er  the  plain  unfurled  its  venturous  wreath, 
Draped  the  tree-tops,  loitered  upon  the  hill, 
And  warmed  the  pinions  of  the  early  bird  ; 
And  now,  perchance,  high  in  the  crispy  air, 
Has  caught  sight  of  the  day  o'er  the  earth's  edge, 
And  greets  its  master's  eye  at  his  low  door, 
As  some  refulgent  cloud  in  the  upper  sky. 


We  hear  the  sound  of  wood-chopping  at  the 
farmers'  doors,  far  over  the  frozen  earth,  the  bay 
ing  of  the  house-dog,  and  the  distant  clarion  of 
the  cock.  Though  the  thin  and  frosty  air  con 
veys  only  the  finer  particles  of  sound  to  our 
ears,  with  short  and  sweet  vibrations,  as  the 
waves  subside  soonest  on  the  purest  and  lightest 
liquids,  in  which  gross  substances  sink  to  the 
bottom.  They  come  clear  and  bell-like,  and 
from  a  greater  distance  in  the  horizon,  as  if 
there  were  fewer  impediments  than  in  summer 


A   WINTER   WALK.  113 

to  make  them  faint  and  ragged.  The  ground  is 
sonorous,  like  seasoned  wood,  and  even  the  or 
dinary  rural  sounds  are  melodious,  and  the  jing 
ling  of  the  ice  on  the  trees  is  sweet  and  liquid. 
There  is  the  least  possible  moisture  in  the  at 
mosphere,  all  being  dried  up,  or  congealed,  and 
it  is  of  such  extreme  tenuity  and  elasticity,  that 
it  becomes  a  source  of  delight.  The  withdrawn 
and  tense  sky  seems  groined  like  the  aisles  of  a 
cathedral,  and  the  polished  air  sparkles  as  if 
there  were  crystals  of  ice  floating  in  it.  As  they 
who  have  resided  in  Greenland  tell  us,  that, 
when  it  freezes,  "  the  sea  smokes  like  burning 
turf-land,  and  a  fog  or  mist  arises,  called  frost- 
smoke,"  which  "  cutting  smoke  frequently  raises 
blisters  on  the  face  and  hands,  and  is  very  per 
nicious  to  the  health."  But  this  pure  stinging 
cold  is  an  elixir  to  the  lungs,  and  not  so  much  a 
frozen  mist,  as  a  crystallized  midsummer  haze, 
refined  and  purified  by  cold. 

The  sun  at  length  rises  through  the  distant 
woods,  as  if  with  the  faint  clashing  swinging 
sound  of  cymbals,  melting  the  air  with  his 
beams,  and  with  such  rapid  steps  the  morning 
travels,  that  already  his  rays  are  gilding  the 
distant  western  mountains.  Meanwhile  we  step 
hastily  along  through  the  powdery  snow,  warmed 
by  an  inward  heat,  enjoying  an  Indian  summer 
still,  in  the  increased  glow  of  thought  and  feel- 
8 


114  A  WINTER  WALK. 

ing.  Probably  if  our  lives  were  more  conformed 
to  nature,  we  should  not  need  to  defend  our 
selves  against  her  heats  and  colds,  but  find  her 
our  constant  nurse  and  friend,  as  do  plants  and 
quadrupeds.  If  our  bodies  were  fed  with  pure 
and  simple  elements,  and  not  with  a  stimulating 
and  heating  diet,  they  would  afford  no  more 
pasture  for  cold  than  a  leafless  twig,  but  thrive 
like  the  trees,  which  find  even  winter  genial  to 
their  expansion. 

The  wonderful  purity  of  nature  at  this  season 
is  a  most  pleasing  fact.  Every  decayed  stump 
and  moss-grown  stone  and  rail,  and  the  dead 
leaves  of  autumn,  are  concealed  by  a  clean  nap 
kin  of  snow.  In  the  bare  fields  and  tinkling 
woods,  see  what  virtue  survives.  In  the  coldest 
and  bleakest  places,  the  warmest  charities  still 
maintain  a  foothold.  A  cold  and  searching 
wind  drives  away  all  contagion,  and  nothing 
can  withstand  it  but  what  has  a  virtue  in  it; 
and  accordingly,  whatever  we  meet  with  in  cold 
and  bleak  places,  as  the  tops  of  mountains,  we 
respect  for  a  sort  of  sturdy  innocence,  a  Puritan 
toughness.  All  things  beside  seem  to  be  called 
in  for  shelter,  and  what  stays  out  must  be  part 
of  the  original  frame  of  the  universe,  and  of 
such  valor  as  God  himself.  It  is  invigorating  to 
breathe  the  cleansed  air.  Its  greater  fineness 
and  purity  are  visible  to  the  eye,  and  we  would 


A  WINTER  WALK.  115 

fain  stay  out  long  and  late,  that  the1  gales  may 
sigh  through  us,  too,  as  through  the  leafless  trees, 
and  fit  us  for  the  winter:  —  as  if  we  hoped  so 
to  borrow  some  pure  and  steadfast  virtue,  which 
will  stead  us  in  all  seasons. 

There  is  a  slumbering  subterranean  fire  in 
nature  which  never  goes  out,  and  which  no  cold 
can  chill.  It  finally  melts  the  great  snow,  and 
in  January  or  July  is  only  buried  under  a  thicker 
or  thinner  covering.  In  the  coldest  day  it  flows 
somewhere,  and  the  snow  melts  around  every 
tree.  This  field  of  winter  rye,  which  sprouted 
late  in  the  fall,  and  now  speedily  dissolves  the 
snow,  is  where  the  fire  is  very  thinly  covered. 
We  feel  warmed  by  it.  In  the  winter,  warmth 
stands  for  all  virtue,  and  we  resort  in  thought  to 
a  trickling  rill,  with  its  bare  stones  shining  in 
the  sun,  and  to  warm  springs  in  the  woods,  with 
as  much  eagerness  as  rabbits  and  robins.  The 
steam  which  rises  from  swamps  and  pools,  is  as 
dear  and  domestic  as  that  of  our  own  kettle. 
What  fire  could  ever  equal  the  sunshine  of  a 
winter's  day,  when  the  meadow  mice  come  out 
by  the  wallsides,  and  the  chicadee  lisps  in  the 
defiles  of  the  wood  ?  The  warmth  comes  di 
rectly  from  the  sun,  and  is  not  radiated  from  the 
earth,  as  in  summer ;  and  when  we  feel  his 
beams  on  our  backs  as  we  are  treading  some 
snowy  dell,  we  are  grateful  as  for  a  special  kind- 


116  A  WINTER  WALK. 

ness,  and  bless  the  sun  which  has  followed  us 
into  that  by-place. 

This  subterranean  fire  has  its  altar  in  each 
man's  breast,  for  in  the  coldest  day,  and  on  the 
bleakest  hill,  the  traveller  cherishes  a  warmer  fire 
within  the  folds  of  his  cloak  than  is  kindled  on 
any  hearth.  A  healthy  man,  indeed,  is  the  com 
plement  of  the  seasons,  and  in  winter,  summer 
is  in  his  heart.  There  is  the  south.  Thither 
have  all  birds  and  insects  migrated,  and  around 
the  warm  springs  in  his  breast  are  gathered  the 
robin  and  the  lark. 

At  length,  having  reached  the  edge  of  the 
woods,  and  shut  out  the  gadding  town,  we  enter 
within  their  covert  as  we  go  under  the  roof  of  a 
cottage,  and  cross  its  threshold,  all  ceiled  and 
banked  up  with  snow.  They  are  glad  and  warm 
still,  and  as  genial  and  cheery  in  winter  as  in 
summer.  As  we  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  pines, 
in  the  flickering  and  checkered  light  which  strag 
gles  but  little  way  into  their  maze,  we  wonder 
if  the  towns  have  ever  heard  their  simple  story. 
It  seems  to  us  that  no  traveller  has  ever  explored 
them,  and  notwithstanding  the  wonders  which 
science  is  elsewhere  revealing  every  day,  who 
would  not  like  to  hear  their  annals?  Our  hum 
ble  villages  in  the  plain  are  their  contribution. 
We  borrow  from  the  forest  the  boards  which 
shelter,  and  the  sticks  which  warm  us.  How 


A   WINTER  WALK.  117 

important  is  their  evergreen  to  the  winter,  that 
portion  of  the  summer  which  does  not  fade,  the 
permanent  year,  the  unwithered  grass.  Thus 
simply,  and  with  little  expense  of  altitude,  is  the 
surface  of  the  earth  diversified.  What  would 
human  life  be  without  forests,  those  natural 
cities?  From  the  tops  of  mountains  they  ap 
pear  like  smooth  shaven  lawns,  yet  whither  shall 
we  walk  but  in  this  taller  grass  ? 

In  this  glade  covered  with  bushes  of  a  year's 
growth,  see  how  the  silvery  dust  lies  on  every 
seared  leaf  and  twig,  deposited  in  such  infinite 
and  luxurious  forms  as  by  their  very  variety 
atone  for  the  absence  of  color.  Observe  the  tiny 
tracks  of  mice  around  every  stem,  and  the  tri 
angular  tracks  of  the  nib  bit.  A  pure  elastic 
heaven  hangs  over  all,  as  if  the  impurities  of 
the  summer  sky,  refined  and  shrunk  by  the 
chaste  winter's  cold,  had  been  winnowed  from 
the  heavens  upon  the  earth. 

Nature  confounds  her  summer  distinctions  at 
this  season.  The  heavens  seem  to  be  nearer  the 
earth.  The  elements  are  less  reserved  and  dis 
tinct.  Water  turns  to  ice,  rain  to  snow.  The 
day  is  but  a  Scandinavian  night.  The  winter 
is  an  arctic  summer. 

How  much  more  living  is  the  life  that  is  in 
nature,  the  furred  life  which  still  survives  the 
stinging  nights,  and,  from  amidst  fields  and 


118  A  WINTER  WALK. 

woods  covered  with  frost  and  snow,  sees  the 
sun  rise. 

"  The  foodless  wilds 
Pour  forth  their  brown  inhabitants." 

The  gray  squirrel  and  rabbit  are  brisk  and  play- 
ftL  in  the  remote  glens,  even  on  the  morning  of 
the  cold  Friday.  Here  is  our  Lapland  and  Lab 
rador,  and  for  our  Esquimaux  and  Knistenaux, 
Dog-ribbed  Indians,  Novazemblaites,  and  Spitz- 
bergeners,  are  there  not  the  ice-cutter  and  wood- 
chopper,  the  fox,  musk-rat,  and  mink  ? 

Still,  in  the  midst  of  the  arctic  day,  we  may 
trace  the  summer  to  its  retreats,  and  sympathize 
with  some  contemporary  life.  Stretched  over  the 
brooks,  in  the  midst  of  the  frost-bound  meadows, 
we  may  observe  the  submarine  cottages  of  the 
caddice-worms,  the  larvae  of  the  Plicipennes. 
Their  small  cylindrical  cases  built  around  them 
selves,  composed  of  flags,  sticks,  grass,  and  with 
ered  leaves,  shells,  and  pebbles,  in  form  and 
color  like  the  wrecks  which  strew  the  bottom,  — 
now  drifting  along  over  the  pebbly  bottom,  now 
whirling  in  tiny  eddies  and  dashing  down  steep 
falls,  or  sweeping  rapidly  along  with  the  current, 
or  else  swaying  to  and  fro  at  the  end  of  some 
grass-blade  or  root.  Anon  they  will  leave  their 
sunken  habitations,  and,  crawling  up  the  stems 
of  plants,  or  to  the  surface,  like  gnats,  as  perfect 


A  WINTER  WALK.  119 

insects  henceforth,  flutter  over  the  surface  of 
the  water,  or  sacrifice  their  short  lives  in  the 
flame  of  our  candles  at  evening.  Down  yonder 
little  glen  the  shrubs  are  drooping  under  their 
burden,  and  the  red  alder-berries  contrast  with 
the  white  ground.  Here  are  the  marks  of  a 
myriad  feet  which  have  already  been  abroad. 
The  sun  rises  as  proudly  over  such  a  glen,  as 
over  the  valley  of  the  Seine  or  the  Tiber,  and  it 
seems  the  residence  of  a  pure  and  self-subsistent 
valor,  such  as  they  never  witnessed  ;  which  never 
knew  defeat  nor  fear.  Here  reign  the  simplicity 
and  purity  of  a  primitive  age,  and  a  health  and 
hope  far  remote  from  towns  and  cities.  Stand 
ing  quite  alone,  far  in  the  forest,  while  the 
wind  is  shaking  down  snow  from  the  trees, 
and  leaving  the  only  human  tracks  behind  us, 
we  find  our  reflections  of  a  richer  variety 
than  the  life  of  cities.  The  chicadee  and  nut 
hatch  are  more  inspiring  society  than  statesmen 
and  philosophers,  and  we  shall  return  to  these 
last,  as  to  more  vulgar  companions.  In  this 
lonely  glen,  with  its  brook  draining  the  slopes, 
its  creased  ice  and  crystals  of  all  hues,  where 
the  spruces  and  hemlocks  stand  up  on  either 
side,  and  the  rush  and  sere  wild  oats  in  the 
rivulet  itself,  our  lives  are  more  serene  and 
worthy  to  contemplate. 

As  the  day  advances,  the  heat  of  the  sun  is 


120  A  WINTER  WALK. 

reflected  by  the  hill-sides,  and  we  hear  a  faint 
but  sweet  music,  where  flows  the  rill  released 
from  its  fetters,  and  the  icicles  are  melting  on 
the  trees;  and  the  nuthatch  and  partridge  are 
heard  and  seen.  The  south  wind  melts  the 
snow  at  noon,  and  the  bare  ground  appears 
with  its  withered  grass  and  leaves,  and  we  are 
invigorated  by  the  perfume  which  exhales  from 
it,  as  by  the  scent  of  strong  meats. 

Let  us  go  into  this  deserted  woodman's  hut, 
and  see  how  he  has  passed  the  long  winter 
nights  and  the  short  and  stormy  days.  For 
here  man  has  lived  under  this  south  hill-side, 
and  it  seems  a  civilized  and  public  spot.  We 
have  such  associations  as  when  the  traveller 
stands  by  the  ruins  of  Palmyra  or  Hecatornpolis. 
Singing  birds  and  flowers  perchance  have  begun 
to  appear  here,  for  flowers  as  well  as  weeds  fol 
low  in  the  footsteps  of  man.  These  hemlocks 
whispered  over  his  head,  these  hickory  logs  were 
his  fuel,  and  these  pitch-pine  roots  kindled  his 
fire ;  yonder  fuming  rill  in  the  hollow,  whose 
thin  and  airy  vapor  still  ascends  as  busily  as 
ever,  though  he  is  far  off  now,  was  his  well. 
These  hemlock  boughs,  and  the  straw  upon  this 
raised  platform,  were  his  bed,  and  this  broken 
dish  held  his  drink.  But  he  has  not  been  here 
this  season,  for  the  phaebes  built  their  nest  upon 
this  shelf  last  summer.  I  find  some  embers  left, 


A  WINTER  WALK.  121 

as  if  he  had  but  just  gone  out,  where  he  baked 
his  pot  of  beans ;  and  while  at  evening  he  smoked 
his  pipe,  whose  stemless  bowl  lies  in  the  ashes, 
chatted  with  his  only  companion,  if  perchance 
he  had  any,  about  the  depth  of  the  snow  on  the 
morrow,  already  falling  fast  and  thick  without, 
or  disputed  whether  the  last  sound  was  the 
screech  of  an  owl,  or  the  creak  of  a  bough,  or 
imagination  only;  and  through  this  broad  chim 
ney  throat,  in  the  late  winter  evening,  ere  he 
stretched  himself  upon  the  straw,  he  looked  up 
to  learn  the  progress  of  the  storm,  and,  seeing 
the  bright  stars  of  Cassiopeia's  chair  shining 
brightly  down  upon  him,  fell  contentedly  asleep. 
See  how  many  traces  from  which  we  may 
learn  the  chopper's  history.  From  this  stump 
we  may  guess  the  sharpness  of  his  axe,  and, 
from  the  slope  of  the  stroke,  on  which  side  he 
stood,  and  whether  he  cut  down  the  tree  with 
out  going  round  it  or  changing  hands ;  and, 
from  the  flexure  of  the  splinters,  we  may  know 
which  way  it  fell.  This  one  chip  contains  in 
scribed  on  it  the  whole  history  of  the  wood- 
chopper  and  of  the  world.  On  this  scrap  of 
paper,  which  held  his  sugar  or  salt,  perchance, 
or  was  the  wadding  of  his  gun,  sitting  on  a  log 
in  the  forest,  with  what  interest  we  read  the  tat 
tle  of  cities,  of  those  larger  huts,  empty  and  to 
let,  like  this,  in  High  Streets  and  Broadways. 


122  A  WINTER  WALK. 

The  eaves  are  dripping  on  the  south  side  of  this 
simple  roof,  while  the  titmouse  lisps  in  the  pine, 
and  the  genial  warmth  of  the  sun  around  the 
door  is  somewhat  kind  and  human. 

After  two  seasons,  this  rude  dwelling  does  not 
deform  the  scene.  Already  the  birds  resort  to  it, 
to  build  their  nests,  and  you  may  track  to  its 
door  the  feet  of  many  quadrupeds.  Thus,  for  a 
long  time,  nature  overlooks  the  encroachment 
and  profanity  of  man.  The  wood  still  cheer 
fully  and  unsuspiciously  echoes  the  strokes  of 
the  axe  that  fells  it,  and  while  they  are  few  and 
seldom,  they  enhance  its  wildness,  and  all  the 
elements  strive  to  naturalize  the  sound. 

Now  our  path  begins  to  ascend  gradually  to 
the  top  of  this  high  hill,  from  whose  precipitous 
south  side  we  can  look  over  the  broad  country, 
of  forest  and  field  and  river,  to  the  distant 
snowy  mountains.  See  yonder  thin  column  of 
smoke  curling  up  through  the  woods  from  some 
invisible  farm-house ;  the  standard  raised  over 
some  rural  homestead.  There  must  be  a  warmer 
and  more  genial  spot  there  below,  as  where  we 
detect  the  vapor  from  a  spring  forming  a  cloud 
above  the  trees.  What  fine  relations  are  estab 
lished  between  the  traveller  who  discovers  this 
airy  column  from  some  eminence  in  the  forest, 
and  him  who  sits  below.  Up  goes  the  smoke 
as  silently  and  naturally  as  the  vapor  exhales 


A   WINTER   WALK.  123 

from  the  leaves,  and  as  busy  disposing  itself  in 
wreathes  as  the  housewife  on  the  hearth  below. 
It  is  a  hieroglyphic  of  man's  life,  and  suggests 
more  intimate  and  important  things  than  the 
boiling  of  a  pot.  Where  its  fine  column  rises 
above  the  forest,  like  an  ensign,  some  human 
life  has  planted  itself,  —  and  such  is  the  begin 
ning  of  Rome,  the  establishment  of  the  arts,  and 
the  foundation  of  empires,  whether  on  the  prai 
ries  of  America,  or  the  steppes  of  Asia. 

And  now  we  descend  again  to  the  brink  of 
this  woodland  lake,  which  lies  in  a  hollow  of  the 
hills,  as  if  it  were  their  expressed  juice,  and  that 
of  the  leaves,  which  are  annually  steeped  in  it. 
Without  outlet  or  inlet  to  the  eye,  it  has  still  its 
history,  in  the  lapse  of  its  waves,  in  the  rounded 
pebbles  on  its  shore,  and  in  the  pines  which 
grow  down  to  its  brink.  It  has  not  been  idle, 
though  sedentary,  but,  like  Abu  Musa,  teaches 
that  "  sitting  still  at  home  is  the  heavenly  way ; 
the  going  out  is  the  way  of  the  world."  Yet  in 
its  evaporation  it  travels  as  far  as  any.  In  sum 
mer  it  is  the  earth's  liquid  eye ;  a  mirror  in  the 
breast  of  nature.  The  sins  of  the  wood  are 
washed  out  in  it.  See  how  the  woods  form  an 
amphitheatre  about  it,  and  it  is  an  arena  for  all 
the  genialness  of  nature.  All  trees  direct  the 
traveller  to  its  brink,  all  paths  seek  it  out,  birds 
fly  to  it,  quadrupeds  flee  to  it,  and  the  very 


124  A  WINTER  WALK. 

ground  inclines  toward  it,  It  is  nature's  saloon, 
where  she  has  sat  down  to  her  toilet.  Consider 
her  silent  economy  and  tidiness  ;  how  the  sun 
comes  with  his  evaporation  to  sweep  the  dust 
from  its  surface  each  morning,  and  a  fresh  sur 
face  is  constantly  welling  up;  and  annually, 
after  whatever  impurities  have  accumulated 
herein,  its  liquid  transparency  appears  again  in 
the  spring.  In  summer  a  hushed  music  seems 
to  sweep  across  its  surface.  But  now  a  plain 
sheet  of  snow  conceals  it  from  our  eyes,  except 
where  the  wind  has  swept  the  ice  bare,  and  the 
sere  leaves  are  gliding  from  side  to  side,  tacking 
and  veering  on  their  tiny  voyages.  Here  is  one 
just  keeled  up  against  a  pebble  on  shore,  a  dry 
beech-leaf,  rocking  still,  as  if  it  would  start 
again.  A  skilful  engineer,  methinks,  might  pro 
ject  its  course  since  it  fell  from  the  parent  stem. 
Here  are  all  the  elements  for  such  a  calculation. 
Its  present  position,  the  direction  of  the  wind, 
the  level  of  the  pond,  and  how  much  more  is 
given.  In  its  scarred  edges  and  veins  is  its  log 
rolled  up. 

We  fancy  ourselves  in  the  interior  of  a  larger 
house.  The  surface  of  the  pond  is  our  deal 
table  or  sanded  floor,  and  the  woods  rise  abruptly 
from  its  edge,  like  the  walls  of  a  cottage.  The 
lines  set  to  catch  pickerel  through  the  ice  look 
like  a  larger  culinary  preparation,  and  the  men 


A  WINTER  WALK.  125 

stand  about  on  the  white  ground  like  pieces  of 
forest  furniture.  The  actions  of  these  men,  at 
the  distance  of  half  a  mile  over  the  ice  and 
snow,  impress  us  as  wrhen  we  read  the  exploits 
of  Alexander  in  history.  They  seem  not  un 
worthy  of  the  scenery,  and  as  momentous  as  the 
conquest  of  kingdoms. 

Again  we  have  wandered  through  the  arches 
of  the  wood,  until  from  its  skirts  we  hear  the 
distant  booming  of  ice  from  yonder  bay  of  the 
river,  as  if  it  were  moved  by  some  other  and 
subtler  tide  than  oceans  know.  To  me  it  has  a 
strange  sound  of  home,  thrilling  as  the  voice  of 
one's  distant  and  noble  kindred.  A  mild  sum 
mer  sun  shines  over  forest  and  lake,  and  though 
there  is  but  one  green  leaf  for  many  rods,  yet 
nature  enjoys  a  serene  health.  Every  sound  is 
fraught  with  the  same  mysterious  assurance  of 
health,  as  well  now  the  creaking  of  the  boughs 
in  January,  as  the  soft  sough  of  the  wind  in  July. 

When  Winter  fringes  every  bougb 

With  his  fantastic  wreath, 
And  puts  the  seal  of  silence  now 

Upon  the  leaves  beneath ; 

When  every  stream  in  its  pent-house 

Goes  gurgling  on  its  way, 
And  in  his  gallery  the  mouse 

Nibbleth  the  meadow  hay ; 

Methinks  the  summer  still  is  nigh, 
And  lurketh  underneath, 


126  A  WINTER  WALK. 

As  that  same  meadow-mouse  doth  lie 
Snug  in  that  last  year's  heath. 

And  if  perchance  the  chicadee 

Lisp  a  faint  note  anon, 
The  snow  is  summer's  canopy, 

Which  she  herself  put  on. 

Fair  blossoms  deck  the  cheerful  trees, 
And  dazzling  fruits  depend, 

The  north  wind  sighs  a  summer  breeze, 
The  nipping  frosts  to  fend, 

Bringing  glad  tidings  unto  me, 
The  while  I  stand  all  ear, 

Of  a  serene  eternity, 
Which  need  not  winter  fear. 

Out  on  the  silent  pond  straightway 
The  restless  ice  doth  crack, 

And  pond  sprites  merry  gambols  play 
Amid  the  deafening  rack. 

Eager  I  hasten  to  the  vale, 
As  if  I  heard  brave  news, 

How  nature  held  high  festival, 
Which  it  were  hard  to  lose. 

I  gambol  with  my  neighbor  ice, 
And  sympathizing  quake, 

As  each  new  crack  darts  in  a  trice 
Across  the  gladsome  lake. 

One  with  the  cricket  in  the  ground, 
And  fagot  on  the  hearth, 

Resounds  the  rare  domestic  sound 
Along  the  forest  path. 


A  WINTER  WALK.  127 

Before  night  we  will  take  a  journey  on  skates 
along  the  course  of  this  meandering  river,  as  full 
of  novelty  to  one  who  sits  by  the  cottage  fire  all 
the  winter's  day,  as  if  it  were  over  the  polar  ice, 
with  Captain  Parry  or  Franklin ;  following  the 
winding  of  the  stream,  now  flowing  amid  hills, 
now  spreading  out  into  fair  meadows,  and  form 
ing  a  myriad  coves  and  bays  where  the  pine  and 
hemlock  overarch.  The  river  flows  in  the  rear 
of  the  towns,  and  we  see  all  things  from  a  new 
and  wilder  side.  The  fields  and  gardens  come 
down  to  it  with  a  frankness,  and  freedom  from 
pretension,  which  they  do  not  wear  on  the  high 
way.  It  is  the  outside  and  edge  of  the  earth. 
Our  eyes  are  not  offended  by  violent  contrasts. 
The  last  rail  of  the  farmer's  fence  is  some  sway 
ing  willow  bough,  which  still  preserves  its  fresh 
ness,  and  here  at  length  all  fences  stop,  and  we 
no  longer  cross  any  road.  We  may  go  far  up 
within  the  country  now  by  the  most  retired  and 
level  road,  never  climbing  a  hill,  but  by  broad 
levels  ascending  to  the  upland  meadows.  It  is 
a  beautiful  illustration  of  the  law  of  obedience, 
the  flow  of  a  river ;  the  path  for  a  sick  man,  a 
highway  down  which  an  acorn  cup  may  float 
secure  with  its  freight.  Its  slight  occasional 
falls,  whose  precipices  would  not  diversify  the 
landscape,  are  celebrated  by  mist  and  spray,  and 
attract  the  traveller  from  far  and  near.  From 


128  A  WINTER  WALK. 

the  remote  interior,  its  current  conducts  him  by 
broad  and  easy  steps,  or  by  one  gentle  inclined 
plane,  to  the  sea.  Thus  by  an  early  and  con 
stant  yielding  to  the  inequalities  of  the  ground, 
it  secures  itself  the  easiest  passage. 

No  domain  of  nature  is  quite  closed  to  man 
at  all  times,  and  now  we  draw  near  to  the  em 
pire  of  the  fishes.  Our  feet  glide  swiftly  over 
unfathomed  depths,  where  in  summer  our  line 
tempted  the  pout  and  perch,  and  where  the 
stately  pickerel  lurked  in  the  long  corridors 
formed  by  the  bulrushes.  The  deep,  impenetra 
ble  marsh,  where  the  heron  waded,  and  bittern 
squatted,  is  made  pervious  to  our  swift  shoes,  as 
if  a  thousand  railroads  had  been  made  into  it. 
With  one  impulse  we  are  carried  to  the  cabin 
of  the  musk-rat,  that  earliest  settler,  and  see 
him  dart  away  under  the  transparent  ice,  like  a 
furred  fish,  to  his  hole  in  the  bank  ;  and  we  glide 
rapidly  over  meadows  where  lately  "  the  mower 
whet  his  scythe,"  through  beds  of  frozen  cran 
berries  mixed  with  meadow  grass.  We  skate 
near  to  where  the  blackbird,  the  pewee,  and  the 
kingbird  hung  their  nests  over  the  water,  and  the 
hornets  builded  from  the  maple  in  the  swamp. 
How  many  gay  warblers  following  the  sun,  have 
radiated  from  this  nest  of  silver-birch  and  thistle 
down.  On  the  swamp's  outer  edge  was  hung 
the  supermarine  village,  where  no  foot  pene- 


A  WINTER  WALK.  129 

trated.  In  this  hollow  tree  the  wood-duck  reared 
her  brood,  and  slid  away  each  day  to  forage  in 
yonder  fen. 

In  winter,  nature  is  a  cabinet  of  curiosities, 
full  of  dried  specimens,  in  their  natural  order 
and  position.  The  meadows  and  forests  are  a 
hortus  siccus.  The  leaves  and  grasses  stand 
perfectly  pressed  by  the  air  without  screw  or 
gum,  and  the  birds'  nests  are  not  hung  on  an 
artificial  twig,  but  where  they  builded  them. 
We  go  about  dryshod  to  inspect  the  summer's 
work  in  the  rank  swamp,  and  see  what  a  growth 
have  got  the  alders,  the  willows,  and  the  rnaples; 
testifying  to  how  many  warm  suns,  and  fertiliz 
ing  clews  and  showers.  See  what  strides  their 
boughs  took  in  the  luxuriant  summer,  —  and 
anon  these  dormant  buds  will  carry  them  on 
ward  and  upward  another  span  into  the  heavens. 

Occasionally  we  wade  through  fields  of  snow, 
under  whose  depths  the  river  is  lost  for  many 
rods,  to  appear  again  to  the  right  or  left,  where 
we  least  expected ;  still  holding  on  its  way 
underneath,  with  a  faint,  stertorous,  rumbling 
sound,  as  if,  like  the  bear  and  marmot,  it  too 
had  hibernated,  and  we  had  followed  its  faint 
summer-trail  to  where  it  earthed  itself  in  snow 
and  ice.  At  first  we  should  have  thought  that 

O 

rivers  would  be  empty  and  dry  in  midwinter,  or 
else  frozen  solid  till  the  spring  thawed  them  ; 

9 


130  A  WINTER  WALK. 

but  their  volume  is  not  diminished  even,  for 
only  a  superficial  cold  bridges  their  surface. 
The  thousand  springs  which  feed  the  lakes  and 
streams  are  flowing  still.  The  issues  of  a  few 
surface  springs  only  are  closed,  and  they  go  to 
swell  the  deep  reservoirs.  Nature's  wells  are 
below  the  frost.  The  summer  brooks  are  not 
filled  with  snow-water,  nor  does  the  mower 
quench  his  thirst  with  that  alone,  The  streams 
are  swollen  when  the  snow  melts  in  the  spring, 
because  nature's  work  has  been  delayed,  the 
water  being  turned  into  ice  and  snow,  whose 
particles  are  less  smooth  and  round,  and  do  not 
find  their  level  so  soon. 

Far  over  the  ice,  between  the  hemlock  woods 
and  snow-clad  hills,  stands  the  pickerel  fisher, 
his  lines  set  in  some  retired  cove,  like  a  Fin- 
lander,  with  his  arms  thrust  into  the  pouches 
of  his  dreadnought ;  with  dull,  snowy,  fishy 
thoughts,  himself  a  finless  fish,  separated  a  few 
inches  from  his  race ;  dumb,  erect,  and  made  to 
be  enveloped  in  clouds  and  snows,  like  the  pines 
on  shore.  In  these  wild  scenes,  men  stand  about 
in  the  scenery,  or  move  deliberately  and  heavily, 
having  sacrificed  the  sprightliness  and  vivacity 
of  towns  to  the  dumb  sobriety  of  nature.  He 
does  not  make  the  scenery  less  wild,  more  than 
the  jays  and  musk-rats,  but  stands  there  as  a 
part  of  it,  as  the  natives  are  represented  in  the 


A   WINTER  WALK.  131 

voyages  of  early  navigators,  at  Nootka  Sound, 
and  on  the  Northwest  coast,  with  their  furs 
about  them,  before  they  were  tempted  to  loquac 
ity  by  a  scrap  of  iron.  He  belongs  to  the  nat 
ural  family  of  man,  and  is  planted  deeper  in 
nature  and  has  more  root  than  the  inhabitants 
of  towns.  Go  to  him,  ask  what  luck,  and  you 
will  learn  that  he  too  is  a  worshipper  of  the  un 
seen.  Hear  with  what  sincere  deference  and 
waving  gesture  in  his  tone,  he  speaks  of  the 
lake  pickerel,  which  he  has  never  seen,  his  prim 
itive  and  ideal  race  of  pickerel.  He  is  connected 
with  the  shore  still,  as  by  a  fish-line,  and  yet  re 
members  the  season  when  he  took  fish  through 
the  ice  on  the  pond,  while  the  peas  were  up  in 
his  garden  at  home. 

O 

But  now,  while  we  have  loitered,  the  clouds 
have  gathered  again,  and  a  few  straggling  snow- 
flakes  are  beginning  to  descend.  Faster  and 
faster  they  fall,  shutting  out  the  distant  objects 
from  sight.  The  snow  falls  on  every  wood  and 
field,  and  no  crevice  is  forgotten  ;  by  the  river 
and  the  pond,  on  the  hill  and  in  the  valley. 
Quadrupeds  are  confined  to  their  coverts,  and 
the  birds  sit  upon  their  perches  this  peaceful 
hour.  There  is  not  so  much  sound  as  in  fair 
weather,  but  silently  and  gradually  every  slope, 
and  the  gray  walls  and  fences,  and  the  polished 
ice,  and  the  sere  leaves,  which  were  not  buried 


132  A  WINTER  WALK. 

before,  are  concealed,  and  the  tracks  of  men  and 
beasts  are  lost.  With  so  little  effort  does  nature 
reassert  her  rule  and  blot  out  the  traces  of  men. 
Hear  how  Homer  has  described  the  same.  "  The 
snow-flakes  fall  thick  and  fast  on  a  winter's  day. 
The  winds  are  lulled,  and  the  snow  falls  inces 
sant,  covering  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and 
the  hills,  and  the  plains  where  the  lotus-tree 
grows,  and  the  cultivated  fields,  and  they  are 
falling  by  the  inlets  and  shores  of  the  foaming 
sea,  but  are  silently  dissolved  by  the  waves." 
The  snow  levels  all  things,  and  infolds  them 
deeper  in  the  bosom  of  nature,  as,  in  the  slow 
summer,  vegetation  creeps  up  to  the  entablature 
of  the  temple,  and  the  turrets  of  the  castle,  and 
helps  her  to  prevail  over  art. 

The  surly  night-wind  rustles  through  the 
wood,  and  warns  us  to  retrace  our  steps,  while 
the  sun  goes  down  behind  the  thickening  storm, 
and  birds  seek  their  roosts,  and  cattle  their  stalls. 

"  Drooping  the  lab'rer  ox 

Stands  covered  o'er  with  snow,  and  now  demands 
The  fruit  of  all  his  toil." 

Though  winter  is  represented  in  the  almanac 
as  an  old  man,  facing  the  wind  and  sleet,  and 
drawing  his  cloak  about  him,  we  rather  think  of 
him  as  a  merry  wood-chopper,  and  warm-blooded 
youth,  as  blithe  as  summer.  The  unexplored 


A  WINTER  WALK.  133 

grandeur  of  the  storm  keeps  up  the  spirits  of 
the  traveller.  It  does  not  trifle  with  us,  but  has 
a  sweet  earnestness.  In  winter  we  lead  a  more 
inward  life.  Our  hearts  are  warm  and  cheery, 
like  cottages  under  drifts,  whose  windows  and 
doors  are  half  concealed,  but  from  whose  chim 
neys  the  smoke  cheerfully  ascends.  The  im 
prisoning  drifts  increase  the  sense  of  comfort 
which  the  house  affords,  and  in  the  coldest  days 
we  are  content  to  sit  over  the  hearth  and  see 
the  sky  through  the  chimney  top,  enjoying  the 
quiet  and  serene  life  that  may  be  had  in  a  warm 
corner  by  the  chimney  side,  or  feeling  our  pulse 
by  listening  to  the  low  of  cattle  in  the  street,  or 
the  sound  of  the  flail  in  distant  barns  all  the  long 
afternoon.  No  doubt  a  skilful  physician  could 
determine  our  health  by  observing  how  these 
simple  and  natural  sounds  affected  us.  We 
enjoy  now,  not  an  oriental,  but  a  boreal  leisure, 
around  warm  stoves  and  fireplaces,  and  watch 
the  shadow  of  motes  in  the  sunbeams. 

Sometimes  our  fate  grows  too  homely  and 
familiarly  serious  ever  to  be  cruel.  Consider 
how  for  three  months  the  human  destiny  is 
wrapped  in  furs.  The  good  Hebrew  Revelation 
takes  no  cognizance  of  all  this  cheerful  snow. 
Is  there  no  religion  for  the  temperate  and  frigid 
zones  ?  We  know  of  no  scripture  which  records 
the  pure  benignity  of  the  gods  on  a  New  Eng- 


134  A  WINTER  WALK. 

land  winter  night.  Their  praises  have  never 
been  sung,  only  their  wrath  deprecated.  The 
best  scripture,  after  all,  records  but  a  meagre 
faith.  Its  saints  live  reserved  and  austere.  Let 
a  brave  devout  man  spend  the  year  in  the  woods 
of  Maine  or  Labrador,  and  see  if  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  speak  adequately  to  his  condition  and 
experience,  from  the  setting  in  of  winter  to  the 
breaking  up  oi  the  ice, 

Now  commences  the  long  winter  evening 
around  the  farmer's  hearth,  when  the  thoughts 
of  the  indwellers  travel  far  abroad,  and  men  are 
by  nature  and  necessity  charitable  and  liberal 
to  all  creatures.  Now  is  the  happy  resistance 
to  cold,  when  the  farmer  reaps  his  reward, 
and  thinks  of  his  preparedness  for  winter, 
and,  through  the  glittering  panes,  sees  with 
equanimity  "  the  mansion  of  the  northern  bear," 
for  now  the  storm  is  over, 

"  The  full  ethereal  round, 
Infinite  worlds  disclosing  to  the  view, 
Shines  out  intensely  keen  ;  and  all  one  cope 
Of  starry  glitter  glows  from  pole  to  pole." 


THE   SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST  TREES.* 

[I860.] 

EVERY  man  is  entitled  to  come  to  Cattle- 
show,  even  a  transcendentalist ;  and  for  my  part 
I  am  more  interested  in  the  men  than  in  the 
cattle.  I  wish  to  see  once  more  those  old  famil 
iar  faces,  whose  names  I  do  not  know,  which  for 
me  represent  the  Middlesex  country,  and  come 
as  near  being  indigenous  to  the  soil  as  a  white 
man  can  ;  the  men  who  are  not  above  their  busi 
ness,  whose  coats  are  not  too  black,  whose  shoes 
do  not  shine  very  much,  who  never  wear  gloves 
to  conceal  their  hands.  It  is  true,  there  are 
some  queer  specimens  of  humanity  attracted  to 
our  festival,  but  all  are  welcome.  I  am  pretty 
sure  to  meet  once  more  that  weak-minded  and 
whimsical  fellow,  generally  weak-bodied  too, 
who  prefers  a  crooked  stick  for  a  cane ;  per 
fectly  useless,  you  would  say,  only  bizarre,  fit 
for  a  cabinet,  like  a  petrified  snake.  A  ram's 
horn  would  be  as  convenient,  and  is  yet  more 
curiously  twisted.  He  brings  that  much  in 
dulged  bit  of  the  country  with  him,  from  some 
town's  end  or  other,  and  introduces  it  to  Con* 

*  An  Address  read  to  the  Middlesex  Agricultural  Society,  in  Con 
cord,  September,  I860. 


136    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

cord  groves,  as  if  he  had  promised  it  so  much 
sometime.  So  some,  it  seems  to  me,  elect  their 
rulers  for  their  crookedness.  But  I  think  that  a 
straight  stick  makes  the  best  cane,  and  an  up 
right  man  the  best  ruler.  Or  why  choose  a  man 
to  do  plain  work  who  is  distinguished  for  his 
oddity  ?  However,  I  do  not  know  but  you  will 
think  that  they  have  committed  this  mistake 
who  invited  me  to  speak  to  you  to-day. 

In  my  capacity  of  surveyor,  I  have  often 
talked  with  some  of  you,  my  employers,  at  your 
dinner-tables,  after  having  gone  round  and  round 
and  behind  your  farming,  and  ascertained  exactly 
what  its  limits  were.  Moreover,  taking  a  sur 
veyor's  and  a  naturalist's  liberty,  I  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  going  across  your  lots  much  oftener 
than  is  usual,  as  many  of  you,  perhaps  to  your 
sorrow,  are  aware.  Yet  many  of  you,  to  my 
relief,  have  seemed  not  to  be  aware  of  it ;  and 
when  I  came  across  you  in  some  out-of-the-way 
nook  of  your  farms,  have  inquired,  with  an  air 
of  surprise,  if  I  were  not  lost,  since  you  had 
never  seen  me  in  that  part  of  the  town  or  county 
before ;  when,  if  the  truth  were  known,  and  it 
had  not  been  for  betraying  my  secret,  I  might 
with  more  propriety  have  inquired  if  you  were 
not  lost,  since  I  had  never  seen  you  there  before 
I  have  several  times  shown  the  proprietor  th 
shortest  way  out  of  his  wood-lot. 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    137 

Therefore,  it  would  seem  that  I  have  some 
title  to  speak  to  you  to-day ;  and  considering 
what  that  title  is,  and  the  occasion  that  has 
called  us  together,  I  need  offer  no  apology  if  I 
invite  your  attention,  for  the  few  moments  that 
are  allotted  me,  to  a  purely  scientific  subject. 

At  those  dinner-tables  referred  to,  I  have  often 
been  asked,  as  many  of  you  have  been,  if  I 
could  tell  how  it  happened,  that  when  a  pine 
wood  was  cut  down  an  oak  one  commonly 
sprang  up,  and  vice  versa.  To  which  I  have 
answered,  and  now  answer,  that  I  can  tell, — 
that  it  is  no  mystery  to  me.  As  I  am  not  aware 
that  this  has  been  clearly  shown  by  any  one,  I 
shall  lay  the  more  stress  on  this  point.  Let  me 
lead  you  back  into  your  wood-lots  again. 

When,  hereabouts,  a  single  forest  tree  or  a 
forest  springs  up  naturally  where  none  of  its 
kind  grew  before,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say, 
though  in  some  quarters  still  it  may  sound  par 
adoxical,  that  it  came  from  a  seed.  Of  the  va 
rious  ways  by  which  trees  are  known  to  be  prop 
agated,  —  by  transplanting,  cuttings,  and  the  like, 
—  this  is  the  only  supposable  one  under  these 
circumstances.  No  such  tree  has  ever  been 
known  to  spring  from  anything  else.  If  any 
one  asserts  that  it  sprang  from  something  else, 
or  from  nothing,  the  burden  of  proof  lies  with 
him. 


138    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

It  remains,  then,  only  to  show  how  the  seed  is 
transported  from  where  it  grows,  to  where  it  is 
planted.  This  is  done  chiefly  by  the  agency  of 
the  wind,  water,  and  animals.  The  lighter  seeds, 
as  those  of  pines  and  maples,  are  transported 
chiefly  by  wind  and  water ;  the  heavier,  as  acorns 
and  nuts,  by  animals. 

In  all  the  pines,  a  very  thin  membrane,  in  ap 
pearance  much  like  an  insect's  wing,  grows  over 
and  around  the  seed,  and  independent  of  it, 
while  the  latter  is  being  developed  within  its 
base.  Indeed  this  is  often  perfectly  developed, 
though  the  seed  is  abortive ;  nature  being,  you 
would  say,  more  sure  to  provide  the  means  of 
transporting  the  seed,  than  to  provide  the  seed 
to  be  transported.  In  other  words,  a  beautiful 
thin  sack  is  woven  around  the  seed,  with  a  han 
dle  to  it  such  as  the  wind  can  take  hold  of,  and 
it  is  then  committed  to  the  wind,  expressly  that 
it  may  transport  the  seed  and  extend  the  range 
of  the  species  ;  and  this  it  does,  as  effectually,  as 
when  seeds  are  sent  by  mail  in  a  different  kind 
of  sack  from  the  patent-office.  There  is  a  pat 
ent-office  at  the  seat  of  government  of  the  uni 
verse,  whose  managers  are  as  much  interested 
in  the  dispersion  of  seeds  as  anybody  at  Wash 
ington  can  be,  and  their  operations  are  infinitely 
more  extensive  and  regular. 

There  is  then  no  necessity  for  supposing  that 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    139 

the  pines  have  sprung  up  from  nothing,  and  I 
am  aware  that  I  am  not  at  all  peculiar  in  assert 
ing  that  they  come  from  seeds,  though  the  mode 
of  their  propagation  by  nature  has  been  but  little 
attended  to.  They  are  very  extensively  raised 
from  the  seed  in  Europe,  and  are  beginning  to 
be  here. 

When  you  cut  down  an  oak  wood,  a  pine 
wood  will  not  at  once  spring  up  there  unless 
there  are,  or  have  been,  quite  recently,  seed-bear 
ing  pines  near  enough  for  the  seeds  to  be  blown 
from  them.  But,  adjacent  to  a  forest  of  pines, 
if  you  prevent  other  crops  from  growing  there, 
you  will  surely  have  an  extension  of  your  pine 
forest,  provided  the  soil  is  suitable. 

As  for  the  heavy  seeds  and  nuts  which  are  not 
furnished  with  wings,  the  notion  is  still  a  very 
common  one  that,  when  the  trees  which  bear 
these  spring  up  where  none  of  their  kind  were 
noticed  before,  they  have  come  from  seeds  or 
other  principles  spontaneously  generated  there 
in  an  unusual  manner,  or  which  have  lain  dor 
mant  in  the  soil  for  centuries,  or  perhaps  been 
called  into  activity  by  the  heat  of  a  burning.  I 
do  not  believe  these  assertions,  and  I  will  state 
some  of  the  ways  in  which,  according  to  my 
observation,  such  forests  are  planted  and  raised. 

Every  one  of  these  seeds,  too,  will  be  found 
to  be  winged  or  legged  in  another  fashion. 


140         THE  SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST  TREES. 

Surely  it  is  not  wonderful  that  cherry-trees  of 
all  kinds  are  widely  dispersed,  since  their  fruit 
is  well  known  to  be  the  favorite  food  of  various 
birds.  Many  kinds  are  called  bird-cherries,  and 
they  appropriate  many  more  kinds,  which  are 
not  so  called.  Eating  cherries  is  a  bird-like 
employment,  and  unless  we  disperse  the  seeds 
occasionally,  as  they  do,  I  shall  think  that  the 
birds  have  the  best  right  to  them.  See  how  art 
fully  the  seed  of  a  cherry  is  placed  in  order  that 
a  bird  may  be  compelled  to  transport  it  —  in  the 
very  midst  of  a  tempting  pericarp,  so  that  the 
creature  that  would  devour  this  must  commonly 
take  the  stone  also  into  its  mouth  or  bill.  If 
you  ever  ate  a  cherry,  and  did  not  make  two 
bites  of  it,  you  must  have  perceived  it  —  right 
in  the  centre  of  the  luscious  morsel,  a  large 
earthy  residuum  left  on  the  tongue.  We  thus 
take  into  our  mouths  cherry  stones  as  big  as 
peas,  a  dozen  at  once,  for  Nature  can  persuade 
us  to  do  almost  anything  when  she  would  com 
pass  her  ends.  Some  wild  men  and  children 
instinctively  swallow  these,  as  the  birds  do  when 
in  a  hurry,  it  being  the  shortest  way  to  get  rid 
of  them.  Thus,  though  these  seeds  are  not  pro 
vided  with  vegetable  wings,  Nature  has  impelled 
the  thrush  tribe  to  take  them  into  their  bills  and 
fly  away  with  them ;  and  they  are  winged  in 
another  sense,  and  more  effectually  than  the 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    141 

seeds  of  pines,  for  these  are  carried  even  against 
the  wind.  The  consequence  is,  that  cherry-trees 
grow  not  only  here  but  there.  The  same  is  true 
of  a  great  many  other  seeds. 

But  to  come  to  the  observation  which  sug 
gested  these  remarks.  As  I  have  said,  I  sus 
pect  that  I  can  throw  some  light  on  the  fact, 
that  when  hereabouts  a  dense  pine  wood  is  cut 
down,  oaks  and  other  hard  woods  may  at  once 
take  its  place.  I  have  got  only  to  show  that 
the  acorns  and  nuts,  provided  they  are  grown  in 
the  neighborhood,  are  regularly  planted  in  such 
woods ;  for  I  assert  that  if  an  oak-tree  has  not 
grown  within  ten  miles,  and  man  has  not  car 
ried  acorns  thither,  then  an  oak  wood  will  not 
spring  up  at  once,  when  a  pine  wood  is  cut 
down. 

Apparently,  there  were  only  pines  there  be 
fore.  They  are  cut  off,  and  after  a  year  or  two 
you  see  oaks  and  other  hard  woods  springing 
up  there,  with  scarcely  a  pine  amid  them,  and 
the  wonder  commonly  is,  how  the  seed  could 
have  lain  in  the  ground  so  long  without  decay 
ing.  Bat  the  truth  is,  that  it  has  not  lain  in  the 
ground  so  long,  but  is  regularly  planted  each 
year  by  various  quadrupeds  and  birds. 

In  this  neighborhood,  where  oaks  and  pines 
are  about  equally  dispersed,  if  you  look  through 
the  thickest  pine  wood,  even  the  seemingly 


142         THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

unmixed  pitch-pine  ones,  you  will  commonly 
detect  many  little  oaks,  birches,  and  other 
hard  woods,  sprung  from  seeds  carried  into 
the  thicket  by  squirrels  and  other  animals, 
and  also  blown  thither,  but  which  are  over 
shadowed  and  choked  by  the  pines.  The  denser 
the  evergreen  wood,  the  more  likely  it  is  to 
be  well  planted  with  these  seeds,  because  the 
planters  incline  to  resort  with  their  forage  to  the 
closest  covert.  They  also  carry  it  into  birch  and 
other  woods.  This  planting  is  carried  on  an 
nually,  and  the  oldest  seedlings  annually  die  ; 
but  when  the  pines  are  cleared  off,  the  oaks, 
having  got  just  the  start  they  want,  and  now 
secured  favorable  conditions,  immediately  spring 
up  to  trees. 

The  shade  of  a  dense  pine  wood,  is  more 
unfavorable  to  the  springing  up  of  pines  of  the 
same  species  than  of  oaks  within  it,  though  the 
former  may  come  up  abundantly  when  the  pines 
are  cut,  if  there  chance  to  be  sound  seed  in  the 
ground. 

But  when  you  cut  off  a  lot  of  hard  wood, 
very  often  the  little  pines  mixed  with  it  have 
a  similar  start,  for  the  squirrels  have  carried  off 
the  nuts  to  the  pines,  and  not  to  the  more  open 
wood,  and  they  commonly  make  pretty  clean 
work  of  it ;  and  moreover,  if  the  wood  was  old, 
the  sprouts  will  be  feeble  or  entirely  fail ;  to  say 


THE  SUCCESSIOX  OF  FOREST  TREES.    143 

nothing  about  the  soil  being,  in  a  measure,  ex 
hausted  for  this  kind  of  crop. 

If  a  pine  wood  is  surrounded  by  a  white  oak 
one  chiefly,  white  oaks  may  be  expected  to  suc 
ceed  when  the  pines  are  cut.  If  it  is  surrounded 
instead  by  an  edging  of  shrub-oaks,  then  you 
will  probably  have  a  dense  shrub-oak  thicket. 

I  have  no  time  to  go  into  details,  but  will  say, 
in  a  word,  that  while  the  wind  is  conveying  the 
seeds  of  pines  into  hard  woods  and  open  lands, 
the  squirrels  and  other  animals  are  conveying 
the  seeds  of  oaks  and  walnuts  into  the  pine 
woods,  and  thus  a  rotation  of  crops  is  kept  up. 

I  affirmed  this  confidently  many  years  ago, 
and  an  occasional  examination  of  dense  pine 
woods  confirmed  me  in  my  opinion.  It  has 
long  been  known  to  observers  that  squirrels 
bury  nuts  in  the  ground,  but  I  am  not  aware 
that  any  one  has  thus  accounted  for  the  regular 
succession  of  forests. 

On  the  24th  of  September,  in  1857,  as  I  was 
paddling  down  the  Assabet,  in  this  town,  I  saw 
a  red  squirrel  run  along  the  bank  under  some 
herbage,  with  something  large  in  its  mouth. 
It  stopped  near  the  foot  of  a  hemlock,  within 
a  couple  of  rods  of  me,  and,  hastily  pawing  a 
hole  with  its  forefeet,  dropped  its  booty  into 
it,  covered  it  up,  and  retreated  part  way  up  the 
trunk  of  the  tree.  As  I  approached  the  shore 


144    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

to  examine  the  deposit,  the  squirrel,  descending 
part  way,  betrayed  no  little  anxiety  about  its 
treasure,  and  made  two  or  three  motions  to 
recover  it  before  it  finally  retreated.  Digging 
there,  I  found  two  green  pig-nuts  joined  to 
gether,  with  the  thick  husks  on,  buried  about 
an  inch  and  a  half  under  the  reddish  soil 
of  decayed  hemlock  leaves,  —  just  the  right 
depth  to  plant  it.  In  short,  this  squirrel  was 
then  engaged  in  accomplishing  two  objects,  to 
wit,  laying  up  a  store  of  winter  food  for  itself, 
and  planting  a  hickory  wood  for  all  creation. 
If  the  squirrel  was  killed,  or  neglected  its  de 
posit,  a  hickory  would  spring  up.  The  nearest 
hickory  tree  was  twenty  rods  distant.  These 
nuts  were  there  still  just  fourteen  days  later,  but 
were  gone  when  I  looked  again,  November  21, 
or  six  weeks  later  still. 

I  have  since  examined  more  carefully  several 
dense  woods,  which  are  said  to  be,  and  are  ap 
parently  exclusively  pine,  and  always  with  the 
same  result.  For  instance,  I  walked  the  same 
day  to  a  small,  but  very  dense  and  handsome 
white-pine  grove,  about  fifteen  rods  square,  in 
the  east  part  of  this  town.  The  trees  are  large 
for  Concord,  being  from  ten  to  twenty  inches  in 
diameter,  and  as  exclusively  pine  as  any  wood 
that  I  know.  Indeed,  I  selected  this  wood  be 
cause  I  thought  it  the  least  likely  to  contain 


THE   SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST   TREES.         145 

anything  else.  It  stands  on  an  open  plain  or 
pasture,  except  that  it  adjoins  another  small 
pine  wood,  which  has  a  few  little  oaks  in  it, 
on  the  southeast  side.  On  every  other  side,  it 
was  at  least  thirty  rods  from  the  nearest  woods. 
Standing  on  the  edge  of  this  grove  and  looking 
through  it,  for  it  is  quite  level  and  free  from 
underwood,  for  the  most  part  bare,  red-carpeted 
ground,  you  would  have  said  that  there  was  not 
a  hard  wood  tree  in  it,  young  or  old.  But  on 
looking  carefully  along  over  its  floor  I  discov 
ered,  though  it  was  not  till  my  eye  had  got  used 
to  the  search,  that,  alternating  with  thin  ferns, 
and  small  blueberry  bushes,  there  was,  not  mere 
ly  here  and  there,  but  as  often  as  every  five  feet 
and  with  a  degree  of  regularity,  a  little  oak, 
from  three  to  twelve  inches  high,  and  in  one 
place  I  found  a  green  acorn  dropped  by  the 
base  of  a  pine. 

I  confess,  I  \vas  surprised  to  find  my  theory  so 
perfectly  proved  in  this  case.  One  of  the  prin 
cipal  agents  in  this  planting,  the  red  squirrels, 
were  all  the  while  curiously  inspecting  me,  while 
I  was  inspecting  their  plantation.  Some  of  the 
little  oaks  had  been  browsed  by  cows,  which  re 
sorted  to  this  wood  for  shade. 

After  seven  or  eight  years,  the  hard  woods 
evidently  find  such  a  locality  unfavorable  tc 
their  growth,  the  pines  being  allowed  to  stand. 
10 


146          THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

As  an  evidence  of  this,  I  observed  a  diseased 
red-maple  twenty-five  feet  long,  which  had  been 
recently  prostrated,  though  it  was  still  covered 
with  green  leaves,  the  only  maple  in  any  posi 
tion  in  the  wood. 

But  although  these  oaks  almost  invariably  die 
if  the  pines  are  not  cut  down,  it  is  probable  that 
they  do  better  for  a  few  years  under  their  shelter 
than  they  would  anywhere  else. 

The  very  extensive  and  thorough  experiments 
of  the  English,  have  at  length  led  them  to  adopt 
a  method  of  raising  oaks  almost  precisely  like 
this,  which  somewhat  earlier  had  been  adopted 
by  nature  and  her  squirrels  here ;  they  have 
simply  rediscovered  the  value  of  pines  as  nurses 
for  oaks.  The  English  experimenters  seem 
early  and  generally,  to  have  found  out  the 
importance  of  using  trees  of  some  kind,  as 
nurse-plants  for  the  young  oaks.  I  quote  from 
Loudon  what  he  describes  as  "  the  ultimatum 
on  the  subject  of  planting  and  sheltering  oaks," 
— "  an  abstract  of  the  practice  adopted  by  the 
government  officers  in  the  national  forests  "  of 
England,  prepared  by  Alexander  Milne. 

At  first  some  oaks  had  been  planted  by  them 
selves,  and  others  mixed  with  Scotch  pines ; 
"  but  in  all  cases,"  says  Mr.  Milne,  "  where 
oaks  were  planted  actually  among  the  pines, 
and  surrounded  by  them,  [though  the  soil  might 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    147 

be  inferior,]  the  oaks  were  found  to  be  much 
the  best."  "  For  several  years  past,  the  plan 
pursued  has  been  to  plant  the  inclosures  with 
Scotch  pines  only,  [a  tree  very  similar  to  our 
pitch-pine,]  and  when  the  pines  have  got  to  the 
height  of  five  or  six  feet,  then  to  put  in  good 
strong  oak  plants  of  about  four  or  five  years' 
growth  among  the  pines,  —  not  cutting  away 
any  pines  at  first,  unless  they  happen  to  be  so 
strong  and  thick  as  to  overshadow  the  oaks. 
In  about  two  years,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
shred  the  branches  of  the  pines,  to  give  light 
and  air  to  the  oaks,  and  in  about  t\vo  or  three 
more  years  to  begin  gradually  to  remove  the 
pines  altogether,  taking  out  a  certain  number 
each  year,  so  that,  at  the  end  of  twenty  or  twen 
ty-five  years,  not  a  single  Scotch  pine  shall  be 
left ;  although,  for  the  first  ten  or  twelve  years,  the 
plantation  may  have  appeared  to  contain  noth 
ing  else  but  pine.  The  advantage  of  this  mode 
of  planting  has  been  found  to  be  that  the  pines 
dry  and  ameliorate  the  soil,  destroying  the  coarse 
grass  and  brambles  which  frequently  choke  and 
injure  oaks  ;  and  that  no  mending  over  is  neces 
sary,  as  scarcely  an  oak  so  planted  is  found  to 
fail." 

Thus  much  the  English  planters  have  discov 
ered  by  patient  experiment,  and,  for  aught  I 
know,  they  have  taken  out  a  patent  for  it;  but 


148    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

they  appear  not  to  have  discovered  that  it 
Was  discovered  before,  and  that  they  are  merely 
adopting  the  method  of  Nature,  which  she  long 
ago  made  patent  to  all.  She  is  all  the  while 
planting  the  oaks  amid  the  pines  without  our 
knowledge,  and  at  last,  instead  of  government 
officers,  we  send  a  party  of  wood-choppers  to 
cut  down  the  pines,  and  so  rescue  an  oak  forest, 
at  which  we  wonder  as  if  it  had  dropped  from 
the  skies. 

As  I  walk  amid  hickories,  even  in  August,  I 
hear  the  sound  of  green  pig-nuts  falling  from 
time  to  time,  cut  off  by  the  chickaree  over  my 
head.  In  the  fall,  I  notice  on  the  ground,  either 
within  or  in  the  neighborhood  of  oak  woods,  on 
all  sides  of  the  town,  stout  oak  twigs  three  or 
four  inches  long,  bearing  half-a-dozen  empty 
acorn-cups,  which  twigs  have  been  gnawed  off 
by  squirrels,  on  both  sides  of  the  nuts,  in  order 
to  make  them  more  portable.  The  jays  scream 
and  the  red  squirrels  scold  while  you  are  clubbing 
and  shaking  the  chestnut  trees,  for  they  are  there 
on  the  same  errand,  and  two  of  a  trade  never 
agree.  I  frequently  see  a  red  or  gray  squirrel 
cast  down  a  green  chestnut  bur,  as  I  am  going 
through  the  woods,  and  I  used  to  think,  some 
times,  that  they  were  cast  at  me.  In  fact,  they 
are  so  busy  about  it,  in  the  midst  of  the  chest 
nut  season,  that  you  cannot  stand  long  in  the 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    149 

woods  without  hearing  one  fall.  A  sportsman 
told  me  that  he  had,  the  day  before,  —  that  was 
in  the  middle  of  October,  —  seen  a  green  chest 
nut  bur  dropt  on  our  great  river  meadow,  fifty 
rods  from  the  nearest  wood,  and  much  further 
from  the  nearest  chestnut-tree,  and  he  could 
not  tell  how  it  came  there.  Occasionally, 
when  chestnutting  in  midwinter,  I  find  thirty 
or  forty  nuts  in  a  pile,  left  in  its  gallery,  just 
under  the  leaves,  by  the  common  wood-mouse 
(mus  Icucopus). 

But  especially,  in  the  winter,  the  extent  to 
which  this  transportation  and  planting  of  nuts 
is  carried  on  is  made  apparent  by  the  snow.  In 
almost  every  wood,  you  will  see  where  the  red 
or  gray  squirrels  have  pawed  down  through  the 
snow  in  a  hundred  places,  sometimes  two  feet 
deep,  and  almost  always  directly  to  a  nut  or  a 
pine-cone,  as  directly  as  if  they  had  started  from 
it  and  bored  upward,  —  which  you  and  I  could 
not  have  done.  It  would  be  difficult  for  us  to 
find  one  before  the  snow  falls.  Commonly,  no 
doubt,  they  had  deposited  them  there  in  the  fall. 
You  wonder  if  they  remember  the  localities,  or 
discover  them  by  the  scent.  The  red  squirrel 
commonly  has  its  winter  abode  in  the  earth 
under  a  thicket  of  evergreens,  frequently  under 
a  small  clump  of  evergreens  in  the  midst  of  a 
deciduous  wood.  If  there  are  any  nut-trees, 


150          THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

which  still  retain  their  nuts,  standing  at  a  dis 
tance  without  the  wood,  their  paths  often  lead 
directly  to  and  from  them.  We,  therefore,  need 
not  suppose  an  oak  standing  here  and  there  in 
the  wood  in  order  to  seed  it,  but  if  a  few  stand 
within  twenty  or  thirty  rods  of  it,  it  is  sufficient. 

I  think  that  I  may  venture  to  say  that  every 
white-pine  cone  that  falls  to  the  earth  naturally 
in  this  town,  before  opening  and  losing  its  seeds, 
and  almost  every  pitch-pine  one  that  falls  at  all, 
is  cut  off  by  a  squirrel,  and  they  begin  to  pluck 
them  long  before  they  are  ripe,  so  that  when  the 
crop  of  white-pine  cones  is  a  small  one,  as  it 
commonly  is,  they  cut  off  thus  almost  every  one 
of  these  before  it  fairly  ripens.  I  think,  more 
over,  that  their  design,  if  I  may  so  speak,  in  cut 
ting  them  off  green,  is,  partly,  to  prevent  their 
opening  and  losing  their  seeds,  for  these  are  the 
ones  for  which  they  dig  through  the  snow,  and 
the  only  white-pine  cones  which  contain  any 
thing  then.  I  have  counted  in  one  heap,  within 
a  diameter  of  four  feet,  the  cores  of  239  pitch- 
pine  cones  which  had  been  cut  off  and  stripped 
by  the  red  squirrel  the  previous  winter. 

The  nuts  thus  left  on  the  surface,  or  buried 
just  beneath  it,  are  placed  in  the  most  favorable 
circumstances  for  germinating.  I  have  some 
times  wondered  how  those  which  merely  fell  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth  got  planted  ;  but,  by  the 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    151 

end  of  December,  I  find  the  chestnut  of  the  same 
year  partially  mixed  with  the  mould,  as  it  were, 
under  the  decaying  and  mouldy  leave?,  where 
there  is  all  the  moisture  and  manure  they  want, 
for  the  nuts  fall  first.  In  a  plentiful  year,  a  large 
proportion  of  the  nuts  are  thus  covered  loosely 
an  inch  deep,  and  are,  of  course,  somewhat  con 
cealed  from  squirrels.  One  winter,  when  the 
crop  had  been  abundant,  I  got,  with  the  aid  of 
a  rake,  many  quarts  of  these  nuts  as  late  as  the 
tenth  of  January,  and  though  some  bought  at  the 
store  the  same  day  were  more  than  half  of  them 
mouldy,  I  did  not  find  a  single  mouldy  one  among 
these  which  I  picked  from  under  the  wet  and 
mouldy  leaves,  where  they  had  been  snowed  on 
once  or  twice.  Nature  knows  how  to  pack  them 
best.  They  were  still  plump  and  tender.  Ap 
parently,  they  do  not  heat  there,  though  wet.  In 
the  spring  they  were  all  sprouting. 

Loudon  says  that  "  when  the  nut  [of  the  com 
mon  walnut  of  Europe]  is  to  be  preserved 
through  the  winter  for  the  purpose  of  planting 
in  the  following  spring,  it  should  be  laid  in  a  rot- 
heap,  as  soon  as  gathered,  with  the  husk  on  ; 
and  the  heap  should  be  turned  over  frequently 
in  the  course  of  the  winter." 

Here,  again,  he  is  stealing  Nature's  "thunder." 
How  can  a  poor  mortal  do  otherwise  ?  for  it  is 
she  that  finds  fingers  to  steal  with,  and  the  treas- 


152    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

ure  to  be  stolen.  In  the  planting  of  the  seeds  of 
most  trees,  the  best  gardeners  do  no  more  than 
follow  Nature,  though  they  may  not  know  it. 
Generally,  both  large  and  small  ones  are  most 
sure  to  germinate,  and  succeed  best,  when  only 
beaten  into  the  earth  with  the  back  of  a  spade, 
and  then  covered  with  leaves  or  straw.  These 
results  to  which  planters  have  arrived,  remind  us 
of  the  experience  of  Kane  and  his  companions 
at  the  North,  who,  when  learning  to  live  in  that 
climate,  were  surprised  to  find  themselves  stead 
ily  adopting  the  customs  of  the  natives,  simply 
becoming  Esquimaux.  So,  when  we  experiment 
in  planting  forests,  we  find  ourselves  at  last  do 
ing  as  Nature  does.  Would  it  not  be  well  to 
consult  with  Nature  in  the  outset  ?  for  she  is  the 
most  extensive  and  experienced  planter  of  us  all, 
not  excepting  the  Dukes  of  Athol. 

In  short,  they  who  have  not  attended  particu 
larly  to  this  subject  are  but  little  aware  to  what 
an  extent  quadrupeds  and  birds  are  employed, 
especially  in  the  fall,  in  collecting,  and  so  dissem 
inating  and  planting  the  seeds  of  trees.  It  is 
the  almost  constant  employment  of  the  squirrels 
at  that  season  and  you  rarely  meet  with  one 
that  has  not  a  nut  in  its  mouth,  or  is  not  just 
going  to  get  one.  One  squirrel-hunter  of  this 
town  told  me  that  he  knew  of  a  walnut-tree 
which  bore  particularly  good  nuts,  but  that  on 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.          153 

going  to  gather  them  one  fall,  he  found  that  he 
had  been  anticipated  by  a  family  of  a  dozen  red 
squirrels.  He  took  out  of  the  tree,  which  was 
hollow,  one  bushel  and  three  pecks  by  measure 
ment,  without  the  husks,  and  they  supplied  him 
and  his  family  for  the  winter.  It  would  be  easy 
to  multiply  instances  of  this  kind.  How  com 
monly  in  the  fall  you  see  the  cheek-pouches  of 
the  striped  squirrel  distended  by  a  quantity  of 
nuts !  This  species  gets  its  scientific  name  Ta- 
mias,  or  the  steward,  from  its  habit  of  storing  up 
nuts  and  other  seeds.  Look  under  a  nut-tree  a 
month  after  the  nuts  have  fallen,  and  see  what 
proportion  of  sound  nuts  to  the  abortive  ones 
and  shells  you  will  find  ordinarily.  They  have 
been  already  eaten,  or  dispersed  far  and  wide. 
The  ground  looks  like  a  platform  before  a  gro 
cery,  where  the  gossips  of  the  village  sit  to  crack 
nuts  and  less  savory  jokes.  You  have  come, 
you  would  say,  after  the  feast  was  over,  and  are 
presented  with  the  shells  only. 

Occasionally,  when  threading  the  woods  in 
the  fall,  you  will  hear  a  sound  as  if  some  one 
had  broken  a  twig,  and,  looking  up,  see  a  jay 
pecking  at  an  acorn,  or  you  will  see  a  flock  of 
them  at  once  about  it,  in  the  top  of  an  oak,  and 
hear  them  break  them  off.  They  then  fly  to  a 
suitable  limb,  and  placing  the  acorn  under  one 
foot,  hammer  away  at  it  busily,  making  a  sound 


154         THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

like  a  woodpecker's  tapping,  looking  round  from 
time  to  time  to  see  if  any  foe  is  approaching, 
and  soon  reach  the  meat,  and  nibble  at  it,  hold 
ing  up  their  heads  to  swallow,  while  they  hold 
the  remainder  very  firmly  with  their  claws.  Nev 
ertheless,  it  often  drops  to  the  ground  before  the 
bird  has  done  with  it.  I  can  confirm  what  Wm. 
Bartram  wrote  to  Wilson,  the  Ornithologist,  that 
"  The  jay  is  one  of  the  most  useful  agents  in  the 
economy  of  nature,  for  disseminating  forest  trees 
and  other  nuciferous  and  hard-seeded  vegetables 
on  which  they  feed.  Their  chief  employment 
during  the  autumnal  season  is  foraging  to  sup 
ply  their  winter  stores.  In  performing  this  ne 
cessary  duty  they  drop  abundance  of  seed  in  their 
flight  over  fields,  hedges,  and  by  fences,  where 
they  alight  to  deposit  them  in  the  post-holes,  &c. 
It  is  remarkable  what  numbers  of  young  trees  rise 
up  in  fields  and  pastures  after  a  wet  winter  and 
spring.  These  birds  alone  are  capable,  in  a  few 
years'  time,  to  replant  all  the  cleared  lands." 

I  have  noticed  that  squirrels  also  frequently 
drop  their  nuts  in  open  land,  which  will  still 
further  account  for  the  oaks  and  walnuts  which 
spring  up  in  pastures,  for,  depend  on  it,  every 
new  tree  comes  from  a  seed.  When  I  examine 
the  little  oaks,  one  or  two  years  old,  in  such 
places,  I  invariably  find  the  empty  acorn  from 
which  they  sprung. 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    155 

So  far  from  the  seed  having  lain  dormant  in 
the  soil  since  oaks  grew  there  before,  as  many 
believe,  it  is  well  known  that  it  is  difficult  to 
preserve  the  vitality  of  acorns  long  enough  to 
transport  them  to  Europe ;  and  it  is  recom 
mended  in  London's  Arboretum,  as  the  safest 
course,  to  sprout  them  in  pots  on  the  voyage. 
The  same  authority  states  that  "  very  few  acorns 
of  any  species  will  germinate  after  having  been 
kept  a  year,"  that  beechmast,  "  only  retains  its 
vital  properties  one  year,"  and  the  black-walnut, 
"  seldom  more  than  six  months  after  it  has  ri 
pened."  I  have  frequently  found  that  in  Novem 
ber,  almost  every  acorn  left  on  the  ground  had 
sprouted  or  decayed.  What  with  frost,  drouth, 
moisture,  and  worms,  the  greater  part  are  soon 
destroyed.  Yet  it  is  staled  by  one  botanical 
writer  that  "  acorns  that  have  lain  for  centuries, 
on  being  ploughed  up,  have  soon  vegetated." 

Mr.  George  B.  Emerson,  in  his  valuable  Report 
on  the  Trees  and  Shrubs  of  this  State,  says  of  the 
pines  :  "  The  tenacity  of  life  of  the  seeds  is  re 
markable.  They  will  remain  for  many  years  un 
changed  in  the  ground,  protected  by  the  coolness 
and  deep  shade  of  the  forest  above  them.  But 
when  the  forest  is  removed,  and  the  warmth  of 
the  sun  admitted,  they  immediately  vegetate." 
Since  he  does  not  tell  us  on  what  observation 
his  remark  is  founded,  I  must  doubt  its  truth. 


156    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

Besides,  the  experience  of  nurserymen  makes  it 
the  more  questionable. 

The  stories  of  wheat  raised  from  seed  buried 
with  an  ancient  Egyptian,  and  of  raspberries 
raised  from  seed  found  in  the  stomach  of  a  man 
in  England,  who  is  supposed  to  have  died  six 
teen  or  seventeen  hundred  years  ago,  are  gen 
erally  discredited,  simply  because  the  evidence  is 
not  conclusive. 

Several  men  of  science,  Dr.  Carpenter  among 
them,  have  used  the  statement  that  beach-plums 
sprang  up  in  sand  which  was  dug  up  forty  miles 
inland  in  Maine,  to  prove  that  the  seed  had  lain 
there  a  very  long  time,  and  some  have  inferred 
that  the  coast  has  receded  so  far.  But  it  seems 
to  me  necessary  to  their  argument  to  show,  first, 
that  beach-plums  grow  only  on  a  beach.  They 
are  not  uncommon  here,  which  is  about  half  that 
distance  from  the  shore ;  and  I  remember  a  dense 
patch  a  few  miles  north  of  us,  twenty -five  miles 
inland,  from  which  the  fruit  was  annually  car 
ried  to  market.  How  much  further  inland  they 
grow,  I  know  not.  Dr.  Chas.  T.  Jackson  speaks 
of  finding  "  beach-plums  "  (perhaps  they  were 
this  kind)  more  than  one  hundred  miles  inland 
in  Maine. 

It  chances  that  similar  objections  lie  against 
all  the  more  notorious  instances  of  the  kind  on 
record. 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.    157 

Yet  I  am  prepared  to  believe  that  some  seeds, 
especially  small  ones,  may  retain  their  vitality 
for  centuries  under  favorable  circumstances.  In 
the  spring  of  1859,  the  old  Hunt  House,  so 
called,  in  this  town,  whose  chimney  bore  the 
date  1703,  was  taken  down.  This  stood  on 
land  which  belonged  to  John  Winthrop,  the  first 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  part  of  the 
house  was  evidently  much  older  than  the  above 
date,  and  belonged  to  the  Winthrop  family. 
For  many  years,  I  have  ransacked  this  neigh 
borhood  for  plants,  and  I  consider  myself  famil 
iar  with  its  productions.  Thinking  of  the  seeds 
which  are  said  to  be  sometimes  dug  up  at  an 
unusual  depth  in  the  earth,  and  thus  to  repro 
duce  long  extinct  plants,  it  occurred  to  me  last 
fall  that  some  new  or  rare  plants  might  have 
sprung  up  in  the  cellar  of  this  house,  which  had 
been  covered  from  the  light  so  long.  Searching 
there  on  the  22d  of  September,  I  found,  among 
other  rank  weeds,  a  species  of  nettle  ( Urtica 
urens),  which  I  had  not  found  before  ;  dill,  which 
I  had  not  seen  growing  spontaneously  ;  the  Je 
rusalem  oak  (Chenopodium  botrys),  which  I  had 
seen  wild  in  but  one  place  ;  black  nightshade 
(Solatium  nigrum),  which  is  quite  rare  here 
abouts,  and  common  tobacco,  which,  though 
it  was  often  cultivated  here  in  the  last  century, 
has  for  fifty  years  been  an  unknown  plant  in 


158    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

this  town,  and  a  few  months  before  this  not 
even  I  had  heard  that  one  man  in  the  north 
part  of  the  town,  was  cultivating  a  few  plants 
for  his  own  use.  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  or 
all  of  these  plants  sprang  from  seeds  which  had 
long  been  buried  under  or  about  that  house,  and 
that  that  tobacco  is  an  additional  evidence  that 
the  plant  was  formerly  cultivated  here.  The 
cellar  has  been  filled  up  this  year,  and  four  of 
those  plants,  including  the  tobacco,  are  now 
again  extinct  in  that  locality. 

It  is  true,  I  have  shown  that  the  animals  con 
sume  a  great  part  of  the  seeds  of  trees,  and  so> 
at  least,  effectually  prevent  their  becoming  trees  ; 
but  in  all  these  cases,  as  I  have  said,  the  con 
sumer  is  compelled  to  be  at  the  same  time  the 
disperser  and  planter,  and  this  is  the  tax  which 
he  pays  to  nature.  I  think  it  is  Linnaeus,  who 
says,  that  while  the  swine  is  rooting  for  acorns,, 
he  is  planting  acorns. 

Though  I  do  not  believe  that  a  plant  will 
spring  up  where  no  seed  has  been,  I  have  great 
faith  in  a  seed  —  a,  to  me,  equally  mysterious  ori 
gin  for  it.  Convince  me  that  you  have  a  seed 
there,  and  I  am  prepared  to  expect  wonders.  I 
shall  even  believe  that  the  millennium  is  at 
hand,  and  that  the  reign  of  justice  is  about  to 
commence,  when  the  Patent  Office,  or  Govern 
ment,  begins  to  distribute,  and  the  people  to 
plant  the  seeds  of  these  things. 


THE   SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST   TREES.          159 

In  the  spring  of  1857,  I  planted  six  seeds  sent 
to  rne  from  the  Patent  Office,  and  labelled,  I 
think,  "  Poitritie  jautie  grosse"  large  yellow 
squash.  Two  came  up,  and  one  bore  a  squash 
which  weighed  123|  pounds,  the  other  bore  four, 
weighing  together  186*  pounds.  Who  would 
have  believed  that  there  was  310  pounds  of 
poitrine  jaunc  grosse  in  that  corner  of  my  gar 
den  ?  These  seeds  were  the  bait  I  used  to 
catch  it,  my  ferrets  which  I  sent  into  its  burrow, 
my  brace  of  terriers  which  unearthed  it.  A 
little  mysterious  hoeing  and  manuring  was  all 
the  abra  cadabra  presto-change,  that  I  used,  and 
lo !  true  to  the  label,  they  found  for  me  310 
pounds  of  poitrine  jaune  grosse  there,  where  it 
never  was  known  to  be,  nor  was  before.  These 
talismen  had  perchance  sprung  from  America  at 
first,  and  returned  to  it  with  unabated  force. 
The  big  squash  took  a  premium  at  your  fair 
that  fall,  and  I  understood  that  the  man  who 
bought  it,  intended  to  sell  the  seeds  for  ten  cents 
a  piece.  (Were  they  not  cheap  at  that?)  But 
I  have  more  hounds  of  the  same  breed.  I  learn 
that  one  which  I  despatched  to  a  distant  town, 
true  to  its  instinct,  points  to  the  large  yellow 
squash  there,  too,  where  no  hound  ever  found  it 
before,  as  its  ancestors  did  here  and  in  France. 

Other  seeds  I  have  which  will  find  other 
things  in  that  corner  of  my  garden,  in  like 


160    THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES. 

fashion,  almost  any  fruit  you  wish,  every  yeat 
for  ages,  until  the  crop  more  than  fills  the  whole 
garden.  You  have  but  little  more  to  do,  than 
throw  up  your  cap  for  entertainment  these 
American  days.  Perfect  alchemists  I  keep, 
who  can  transmute  substances  without  end ; 
and  thus  the  corner  of  my  garden  is  an  inex 
haustible  treasure-chest.  Here  you  can  dig,  not 
gold,  but  the  value  which  gold  merely  repre 
sents  ;  and  there  is  no  Signer  Blitz  about  it. 
Yet  farmers'  sons  will  stare  by  the  hour  to  see  a 
juggler  draw  ribbons  from  his  throat,  though  he 
tells  them  it  is  all  deception.  Surely,  men  love 
darkness  rather  than  light. 


WALKING. 

[1862.] 

I  WISH  to  speak  a  word  for  Nature,  for  abso 
lute  freedom  and  wildness,  as  contrasted  with 
a  freedom  and  culture  merely  civil,  —  to  regard 
man  as  an  inhabitant,  or  a  part  and  parcel  of 
Nature,  rather  than  a  member  of  society.  I 
wish  to  make  an  extreme  statement,  if  so  I  may 
make  an  emphatic  one,  for  there  are  enough 
champions  of  civilization  :  the  minister  and  the 
school-committee,  and  every  one  of  you  will 
take  care  of  that. 

I  have  met  with  but  one  or  two  persons  in 
the  course  of  my  life  who  understood  the  art  of 
Walking,  that  is,  of  taking  walks,  —  who  had  a 
genius,  so  to  speak,  for  sauntering :  which  word 
is  beautifully  derived  "  from  idle  people  who 
roved  about  the  country,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  asked  charity,  under  pretence  of  going  a  la 
Sainte  Terre"  to  the  Holy  Land,  till  the  chil 
dren  exclaimed,  "  There  goes  a  Sainte-  Terrer" 
a  Saunterer,  —  a  Holy-Lander.  They  who 

never  go  to  the  Holy  Land  in  their  walks,  as 

11 


162  WALKING. 

they  pretend,  are  indeed  mere  idlers  and  vaga 
bonds  ;  but  they  who  do  go  there  are  saunterers 
in  the  good  sense,  such  as  I  mean.  Some, 
however,  would  derive  the  word  from  sans  terre, 
without  land  or  a  home,  which,  therefore,  in  the 
good  sense,  will  mean,  having  no  particular 
home,  but  equally  at  home  everywhere.  For 
this  is  the  secret  of  successful  sauntering.  He 
who  sits  still  in  a  house  all  the  time  may  be  the 
greatest  vagrant  of  all ;  but  the  saunterer,  in  the 
good  sense,  is  no  more  vagrant  than  the  mean 
dering  river,  which  is  all  the  while  sedulously 
seeking  the  shortest  course  to  the  sea.  But  I 
prefer  the  first,  which,  indeed,  is  the  most  prob 
able  derivation.  For  every  walk  is  a  sort  of 
crusade,  preached  by  some  Peter  the  Hermit  in 
us,  to  go  forth  and  reconquer  this  Holy  Land 
from  the  hands  of  the  Infidels. 

It  is  true,  we  are  but  faint-hearted  crusaders, 
even  the  walkers,  nowadays,  who  undertake  no 
persevering,  never-ending  enterprises.  Our  ex 
peditions  are  but  tours,  and  come  round  again 
at  evening  to  the  old  hearth-side  from  which  we 
set  out.  Half  the  walk  is  but  retracing  our 
steps.  We  should  go  forth  on  the  shortest 
walk,  perchance,  in  the  spirit  of  undying  adven 
ture,  never  to  return,  —  prepared  to  send  back 
our  embalmed  hearts  only  as  relics  to  our  deso 
late  kingdoms.  If  you  are  ready  to  leave  father 


WALKING.  163 

and  mother,  and  brother  and  sister,  and  wife 
and  child  and  friends,  and  never  see  them  again, 
—  if  you  have  paid  your  debts,  and  made  your 
will,  and  settled  all  your  affairs, 'and  are  a  free 
man,  then  you  are  ready  for  a  walk. 

To  come  down  to  my  own  experience,  my 
companion  and  I,  for  I  sometimes  have  a  com 
panion,  take  pleasure  in  fancying  ourselves 
knights  of  a  new,  or  rather  an  old,  order,  —  not 
Equestrians  or  Chevaliers,  not  Ritters  or  riders, 
but  Walkers,  a  still  more  ancient  and  honorable 
class,  I  trust.  The  chivalric  and  heroic  spirit 
which  once  belonged  to  the  Rider  seems  now  to 
reside  in,  or  perchance  to  have  subsided  into, 
the  Walker,  —  not  the  Knight,  but  Walker  Er 
rant.  He  is  a  sort  of  fourth  estate,  outside  of 
Church  and  State  and  People. 

We  have  felt  that  we  almost  alone  hereabouts 
practised  this  noble  art ;  though,  to  tell  the  truth, 
at  least,  if  their  own  assertions  are  to  be  received, 
most  of  my  townsmen  would  fain  walk  some 
times,  as  I  do,  but  they  cannot.  No  wealth  can 
buy  the  requisite  leisure,  freedom,  and  indepen 
dence,  which  are  the  capital  in  this  profession.  It 
comes  only  by  the  grace  of  God.  It  requires  a 
direct  dispensation  from  Heaven  to  become  a 
walker.  You  must  be  born  into  the  family  of 
the  Walkers.  Ambulator  nasciiur^non  fit.  Some 
of  my  townsmen,  it  is  true,  can  remember  and 


164  WALKING. 

have  described  to  me  some  walks  which  they 
took  ten  years  ago,  in  which  they  were  so  blessed 
as  to  lose  themselves  for  half  an  hour  in  the 
woods ;  but  I  know  very  well  that  they  have 
confined  themselves  to  the  highway  ever  since, 
whatever  pretensions  they  may  make  to  belong 
to  this  select  class.  No  doubt  they  were  ele 
vated  for  a  moment  as  by  the  reminiscence  of  a 
previous  state  of  existence,  when  even  they  were 
foresters  and  outlaws. 

"  When  he  came  to  grene  wode, 

In  a  mery  mornynge, 
There  he  herde  the  notes  small 
Of  byrdes  mery  syngynge. 

"  It  is  ferre  gone,  sayd  Robyn, 

That  I  was  last  here  ; 
Me  lyste  a  lytell  for  to  shote 
At  the  donne  dere." 

I  think  that  I  cannot  preserve  my  health  and 
spirits,  unless  I  spend  four  hours  a  day  at  least, — 
and  it  is  commonly  more  than  that,  —  sauntering 
through  the  woods  and  over  the  hills  and  fields, 
absolutely  free  from  all  worldly  engagements. 
You  may  safely  say,  A  penny  for  your  thoughts, 
or  a  thousand  pounds.  When  sometimes  I  am 
reminded  that  the  mechanics  and  shopkeepers 
stay  in  their  shops  not  only  all  the  forenoon,  but 
all  the  afternoon  too,  sitting  with  crossed  legs, 
so  many  of  them,  —  as  if  the  legs  were  made  to 


WALKING.  165 

sit  upon,  and  not  to  stand  or  walk  upon,  —  I 
think  that  they  deserve  some  credit  for  not  hav 
ing  all  committed  suicide  long  ago. 

I,  who  cannot  stay  in  my  chamber  for  a  single 
day  without  acquiring  some  rust,  and  when 
sometimes  I  have  stolen  forth  for  a  walk  at  the 
eleventh  hour  of  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
too  late  to  redeem  the  day,  when  the  shades  of 
night  were  already  beginning  to  be  mingled  with 
the  daylight,  have  felt  as  if  I  had  committed 
some  sin  to  be  atoned  for,  —  T  confess  that  I  am 
astonished  at  the  power  of  endurance,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  moral  insensibility,  of  my  neigh 
bors  who  confine  themselves  to  shops  and  offices 
the  whole  day  for  weeks  and  months,  ay,  and 
years  almost  together.  I  know  not  what  man 
ner  of  stuff  they  are  of,  —  sitting  there  now  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  as  if  it  were  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  Bonaparte  may  talk  of 
the  three-o'clock-in-the-morning  courage,  but  it 
is  nothing  to  the  courage  which  can  sit  down 
cheerfully  at  this  hour  in  the  afternoon  over 
against  one's  self  whom  you  have  known  all 
the  morning,  to  starve  out  a  garrison  to  whom 
you  are  bound  by  such  strong  ties  of  sympathy. 
I  wonder  that  about  this  time,  or  say  between 
four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  too  late 
for  the  morning  papers  and  too  early  for  the 
evening  ones,  there  is  not  a  general  explosion 


166  WALKING. 

heard  up  and  down  the  street,  scattering  a  legion 
of  antiquated  and  house-bred  notions  and  whims 
to  the  four  winds  for  an  airing,  —  and  so  the 
evil  cure  itself. 

How  womankind,  who  are  confined  to  the 
house  still  more  than  men,  stand  it  I  do  not 
know ;  but  I  have  ground  to  suspect  that  most 
of  them  do  not  stand  it  at  all.  When,  early  in 
a  summer  afternoon,  we  have  been  shaking  the 
dust  of  the  village  from  the  skirts  of  our  gar 
ments,  making  haste  past  those  houses  with 
purely  Doric  or  Gothic  fronts,  which  have  such 
an  air  of  repose  about  them,  my  companion 
whispers  that  probably  about  these  times  their 
occupants  are  all  gone  to  bed.  Then  it  is  that  I 
appreciate  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of  architec 
ture,  which  itself  never  turns  in,  but  forever 
stands  out  and  erect,  keeping  watch  over  the 
slumberers. 

No  doubt  temperament,  and,  above  all,  age, 
have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  As  a  man 
grows  older,  his  ability  to  sit  still  and  follow  in 
door  occupations  increases.  He  grows  vesper- 
tinal  in  his  habits  as  the  evening  of  life  ap 
proaches,  till  at  last  he  comes  forth  only  just 
before  sundown,  and  gets  all  the  walk  that  he 
requires  in  half  an  hour. 

But  the  walking  of  which  I  speak  has  nothing 
in  it  akin  to  taking  exercise,  as  it  is  called,  as 


WALKING.  167 

the  sick  take  medicine  at  stated  hours,  —  as  the 
swinging  of  dumb-bells  or  chairs  ;  but  is  itself 
the  enterprise  and  adventure  of  the  day.  If  you 
would  get  exercise,  go  in  search  of  the  springs 
of  life.  Think  of  a  man's  swinging  dumb-bells 
for  his  health,  when  those  springs  are  bubbling 
up  in  far-off  pastures  unsought  by  him  ! 

Moreover,  you  must  walk  like  a  camel,  which 
is  said  to  be  the  only  beast  which  ruminates 
when  walking.  When  a  traveller  asked  Words 
worth's  servant  to  show  him  her  master's  study, 
she  answered,  "  Here  is  his  library,  but  his  study 
is  out  of  doors." 

Living  much  out  of  doors,  in  the  sun  and 
wind,  will  no  doubt  produce  a  certain  roughness 
of  character,  —  will  cause  a  thicker  cuticle  to 
grow  over  some  of  the  finer  qualities  of  our  na 
ture,  as  on  the  face  and  hands,  or  as  severe  man 
ual  labor  robs  the  hands  of  some  of  their  deli 
cacy  of  touch.  So  staying  in  the  house,  on  the 
other  hand,  may  produce  a  softness  and  smooth 
ness,  not  to  say  thinness  of  skin,  accompanied 
by  an  increased  sensibility  to  certain  impressions. 
Perhaps  we  should  be  more  susceptible  to  some 
influences  important  to  our  intellectual  and 
moral  growth,  if  the  sun  had  shone  and  the 
wind  blown  on  us  a  little  less  ;  and  no  doubt  it 
is  a  nice  matter  to  proportion  rightly  the  thick 
and  thin  skin.  But  methinks  that  is  a  scurf  that 


168  WALKING. 

will  fall  off  fast  enough,  —  that  the  natural  rem 
edy  is  to  be  found  in  the  proportion  which  the 
night  bears  to  the  day,  the  winter  to  the  sum 
mer,  thought  to  experience.  There  will  be  so 
much  the  more  air  and  sunshine  in  our  thoughts. 
The  callous  palms  of  the  laborer  are  conversant 
with  finer  tissues  of  self-respect  and  heroism, 
whose  touch  thrills  the  heart,  than  the  languid 
fingers  of  idleness.  That  is  mere  sentimentality 
that  lies  abed  by  day  and  thinks  itself  white,  far 
from  the  tan  and  callus  of  experience. 

When  we  walk,  we  naturally  go  to  the  fields 
and  woods  :  what  would  become  of  us,  if  we 
walked  only  in  a  garden  or  a  mall  ?  Even  some 
sects  of  philosophers  have  felt  the  necessity  of 
importing  the  woods  to  themselves,  since  they 
did  not  go  to  the  woods.  "  They  planted  groves 
and  walks  of  Platanes,"  where  they  took  subdi- 
ales  ambulationes  in  porticos  open  to  the  air. 
Of  course  it  is  of  no  use  to  direct  our  steps  to 
the  woods,  if  they  do  not  carry  us  thither.  I 
am  alarmed  when  it  happens  that  I  have  walked 
a  mile  into  the  woods  bodily,  without  getting 
there  in  spirit.  In  my  afternoon  walk  I  would 
fain  forget  all  my  morning  occupations  and  my 
obligations  to  society.  But  it  sometimes  hap 
pens  that  I  cannot  easily  shake  off  the  village. 
The  thought  of  some  work  will  run  in  my  head, 
and  I  am  not  where  my  body  is,  —  I  am  out  of 


WALKING.  169 

my  senses.  In  my  walks  I  would  fain  return  to 
my  senses.  What  business  have  I  in  the  woods, 
if  I  am  thinking  of  something  out  of  the  woods  ? 
I  suspect  myself,  and  cannot  help  a  shudder, 
when  I  find  myself  so  implicated  even  in  what 
are  called  good  works,  —  for  this  may  sometimes 
happen. 

My  vicinity  affords  many  good  walks  ;  and 
though  for  so  many  years  I  have  walked  almost 
every  day,  and  sometimes  for  several  days  to 
gether,  I  have  not  yet  exhausted  them.  An  ab 
solutely  new  prospect  is  a  great  happiness,  and 
I  can  still  get  this  any  afternoon.  Two  or  three 
hours'  walking  will  carry  me  to  as  strange  a 
country  as  I  expect  ever  to  see.  A  single  farm 
house  which  I  had  not  seen  before  is  sometimes 
as  good  as  the  dominions  of  the  King  of  Daho 
mey.  There  is  in  fact  a  sort  of  harmony  dis 
coverable  between  the  capabilities  of  the  land 
scape  within  a  circle  of  ten  miles'  radius,  or  the 
limits  of  an  afternoon  walk,  and  the  threescore 
years  and  ten  of  human  life.  It  will  never  be 
come  quite  familiar  to  you. 

Nowadays  almost  all  man's  improvements,  so 
called,  as  the  building  of  houses,  and  the  cut 
ting  down  of  the  forest  and  of  all  large  trees, 
simply  deform  the  landscape,  and  make  it  more 
and  more  tame  and  cheap.  A  people  who 
would  begin  by  burning  the  fences  and  let  the 


170  WALKING. 

forest  stand  !  I  saw  the  fences  half  consumed, 
their  ends  lost  in  the  middle  of  the  prairie,  ana 
some  worldly  miser  with  a  surveyor  looking 
after  his  bounds,  while  heaven  had  taken  place 
around  him,  and  he  did  not  see  the  angels  going 
to  and  fro,  but  was  looking  for  an  old  post-hole 
in  the  midst  of  paradise.  I  looked  again,  and 
saw  him  standing  in  the  middle  of  a  boggy, 
stygian  fen,  surrounded  by  devils,  and  he  had 
found  his  bounds  without  a  doubt,  three  little 
stones,  where  a  stake  had  been  driven,  and  look 
ing  nearer,  I  saw  that  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
was  his  surveyor. 

I  can  easily  walk  ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  any 
number  of  miles,  commencing  at  my  own  door, 
without  going  by  any  house,  without  crossing  a 
road  except  where  the  fox  and  the  mink  do :  first 
along  by  the  river,  and  then  the  brook,  and  then 
the  meadow  and  the  wood-side.  There  are 
square  miles  in  my  vicinity  which  have  no  in 
habitant.  From  many  a  hill  I  can  see  civili 
zation  and  the  abodes  of  man  afar.  The  farm 
ers  and  their  works  are  scarcely  more  obvious 
than  woodchucks  and  their  burrows.  Man  and 
his  affairs,  church  and  state  and  school,  trade 
and  commerce,  and  manufactures  and  agricul 
ture,  even  politics,  the  most  alarming  of  them 
all,  —  I  am  pleased  to  see  how  little  space  they 
occupy  in  the  landscape.  Politics  is  but  a  nar- 


WALKING.  171 

row  field,  and  that  still  narrower  highway  yon 
der  leads  to  it.  I  sometimes  direct  the  traveller 
thither.  If  you  would  go  to  the  political  world, 
follow  the  great  road,  —  follow  that  market-man, 
keep  his  dust  in  your  eyes,  and  it  will  lead  you 
straight  to  it ;  for  it,  too,  has  its  place  merely, 
and  does  not  occupy  all  space.  I  pass  from  it 
as  from  a  bean-field  into  the  forest,  and  it  is  for 
gotten.  In  one  half-hour  I  can  walk  off  to  some 
portion  of  the  earth's  surface  where  a  man  does 
not  stand  from  one  year's  end  to  another,  and 
there,  consequently,  politics  are  not,  for  they  are 
but  as  the  cigar-smoke  of  a  man. 

The  village  is  the  place  to  which  the  roads 
tend,  a  sort  of  expansion  of  the  highway,  as  a 
lake  of  a  river.  It  is  the  body  of  which  roads 
are  the  arms  and  legs,  —  a  trivial  or  quadrivial 
place,  the  thoroughfare  and  ordinary  of  travel 
lers.  The  word  is  from  the  Latin  villa,  which, 
together  with  via,  a  way,  or  more  anciently  ved 
and  vella,  Varro  derives  from  veho,  to  carry,  be 
cause  the  villa  is  the  place  to  and  from  which 
things  are  carried.  They  who  got  their  living 
by  teaming  were  said  vellaturam  facere.  Hence, 
too,  apparently,  the  Latin  word  vilis  and  our 
vile  ;  also  villain.  This  suggests  what  kind  of 
degeneracy  villagers  are  liable  to.  They  are 
wayworn  by  the  travel  that  goes  by  and  over 
them,  without  travelling  themselves. 


172  WALKING. 

Some  do  not  walk  at  all ;  others  walk  in  the 
highways ;  a  few  walk  across  lots.  Roads  are 
made  for  horses  and  men  of  business.  I  do  not 
travel  in  them  much,  comparatively,  because  I 
am  not  in  a  hurry  to  get  to  any  tavern  or  grocery 
or  livery-stable  or  depot  to  which  they  lead.  I 
am  a  good  horse  to  travel,  but  not  from  choice 
a  roadster.  The  landscape-painter  uses  the  fig 
ures  of  men  to  mark  a  road.  He  would  not 
make  that  use  of  my  figure.  I  walk  out  into  a 
Nature  such  as  the  old  prophets  and  poets,  Menu, 
Moses,  Homer,  Chaucer,  walked  in.  You  may 
name  it  America,  but  it  is  not  America  :  neither 
Americus  Vespucius,  nor  Columbus,  nor  the  rest 
were  the  discoverers  of  it.  There  is  a  truer  ac 
count  of  it  in  mythology  than  in  any  history  of 
America,  so  called,  that  I  have  seen. 

However,  there  are  a  few  old  roads  that  may 
be  trodden  with  profit,  as  if  they  led  somewhere 
now  that  they  are  nearly  discontinued.  There 
is  the  Old  Marlborough  Road,  which  does  not 
go  to  Marlborough  now,  methinks,  unless  that 
is  Marlborough  where  it  carries  me.  I  am  the 
bolder  to  speak  of  it  here,  because  I  presume 
that  there  are  one  or  two  such  roads  in  every  town 

THE  OLD  MARLBOROUGH  ROAD. 

Where  they  once  dug  for  money, 

But  never  found  any ; 

Where  sometimes  Martial  Miles 


WALKING.  173 


Singly  files, 

And  Elijah  Wood, 

I  fear  for  no  good  : 

No  other  man, 

Save  Elisha  Dugan,  — 

O  man  of  wild  habits, 

Partridges  and  rabbits, 

Who  hast  no  cares 

Only  to  set  snares, 

WTho  liv'st  all  alone, 

Close  to  the  bone, 

And  where  life  is  sweetest 

Constantly  eatest. 

When  the  spring  stirs  my  blood 
With  the  instinct  to  travel, 
I  can  get  enough  gravel 

On  the  Old  Marlborough  Road. 
Nobody  repairs  it, 
For  nobody  wears  it ; 
It  is  a  living  way, 
As  the  Christians  say. 

Not  many  there  be 
Who  enter  therein, 

Only  the  guests  of  the 
Irishman  Quin. 

What  is  it,  what  is  it, 

But  a  direction  out  there, 

And  the  bare  possibility 
Of  going  somewhere  ? 

Great  guide-boards  of  stone, 
But  travellers  none  ; 
Cenotaphs  of  the  towns 
Named  on  their  crowns. 
It  is  worth  going  to  see 
Where  you  might  be. 


174  WALKING. 

What  king 

Did  the  thing, 

I  am  still  wondering; 

Set  up  how  or  when, 

By  what  selectmen, 

Gourgas  or  Lee, 

Clark  or  Darby  ? 

They  're  a  great  endeavor 

To  be  something  forever ; 

Blank  tablets  of  stone, 

Where  a  traveller  might  groan, 

And  in  one  sentence 

Grave  all  that  is  known  ; 

Which  another  might  read, 

In  his  extreme  need. 

I  know  one  or  two 

Lines  that  would  do, 

Literature  that  might  stand 

All  over  the  land, 

Which  a  man  could  remember 

Till  next  December, 

And  read  again  in  the  spring, 

After  the  thawing. 
If  with  fancy  unfurled 

You  leave  your  abode, 
You  may  go  round  the  world 
By  the  Old  Marlborough  Road. 

At  present,  in  this  vicinity,  the  best  part  of 
the  land  is  not  private  property ;  the  landscape 
is  not  owned,  and  the  walker  enjoys  compara 
tive  freedom.  But  possibly  the  day  will  come 
when  it  will  be  partitioned  off  into  so-called 
pleasure-grounds,  in  which  a  few  will  take  a 


WALKING.  175 

narrow  and  exclusive  pleasure  only,  —  when  fen 
ces  shall  be  multiplied,  and  man-traps  and  other 
engines  invented  to  confine  men  to  the  public 
road,  and  walking  over  the  surface  of  God's 
earth  shall  be  construed  to  mean  trespassing  on 
some  gentleman's  grounds.  To  enjoy  a  thing  ex 
clusively  is  commonly  to  exclude  yourself  from 
the  true  enjoyment  of  it.  Let  us  improve  our 
opportunities,  then,  before  the  evil  days  come. 

What  is  it  that  makes  it  so  hard  sometimes  to 
determine  whither  we  will  walk  ?  I  believe  that 
there  is  a  subtile  magnetism  in  Nature,  which,  if 
we  unconsciously  yield  to  it,  will  direct  us  aright. 
It  is  not  indifferent  to  us  which  way  we  walk. 
There  is  a  right  way  ;  but  we  are  very  liable 
from  heedlessness  and  stupidity  to  take  the 
wrong  one.  We  would  fain  take  that  walk, 
never  yet  taken  by  us  through  this  actual  world,  V 
which  is  perfectly  symbolical  of  the  path  which 
we  love  to  travel  in  the  interior  and  ideal  world ; 
and  sometimes,  no  doubt,  we  find  it  difficult  to 
choose  our  direction,  because  it  does  not  yet 
exist  distinctly  in  our  idea. 

When  I  go  out  of  the  house  for  a  walk,  un 
certain  as  yet  whither  I  will  bend  my  steps,  and 
submit  myself  to  my  instinct  to  decide  for  me, 
I  find,  strange  and  whimsical  as  it  may  seem, 
that  I  finally  and  inevitably  settle  southwest, 


176  WALKING. 

toward  some  particular  wood  or  meadow  or  d& 
serted  pasture  or  hill  in  that  direction.  My  nee 
die  is  slow  to  settle,  —  varies  a  few  degrees,  ancr 
does  not  always  point  due  southwest,  it  is  true, 
and  it  has  good  authority  for  this  variation,  but 
it  always  settles  between  west  and  south-south 
west.  The  future  lies  that  way  to  me,  and  the 
earth  seems  more  unexhausted  and  richer  on  that 
side.  The  outline  which  would  bound  my  walks 
would  be,  not  a  circle,  but  a  parabola,  or  rather 
like  one  of  those  cometary  orbits  which  have 
been  thought  to  be  non-returning  curves,  in  this 
case  opening  westward,  in  which  my  house  oc 
cupies  the  place  of  the  sun.  I  turn  round  and 
round  irresolute  sometimes  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  until  I  decide,  for  a  thousandth  time,  that 
I  will  walk  into  the  southwest  or  west.  East 
ward  I  go  only  by  force ;  but  westward  I  go 
free.  Thither  no  business  leads  me.  It  is  hard 
for  me  to  believe  that  I  shall  find  fair  landscapes 
or  sufficient  wildness  and  freedom  behind  the 
eastern  horizon.  I  am  not  excited  by  the  pros 
pect  of  a  walk  thither ;  but  I  believe  that  the 
forest  which  I  see  in  the  western  horizon  stretch 
es  uninterruptedly  toward  the  setting  sun,  and 
there  are  no  towns  nor  cities  in  it  of  enough 
consequence  to  disturb  me.  Let  me  live  where 
I  will,  on  this  side  is  the  city,  on  that  the  wilder 
ness,  and  ever  I  am  leaving  the  city  more  and 


WALKING.  177 

more,  and  withdrawing  into  the  wilderness.  I 
should  not  lay  so  much  stress  on  this  fact,  if 
I  did  not  believe  that  something  like  this  is 
the  prevailing  tendency  of  my  countrymen.  I 
must  walk  toward  Oregon,  and  not  toward  Eu 
rope.  And  that  way  the  nation  is  moving,  and  I 
may  say  that  mankind  progress  from  east  to  west. 
Within  a  few  years  we  have  witnessed  the  phe 
nomenon  of  a  southeastward  migration,  in  the 
settlement  of  Australia;  but  this  affects  us  as 
a  retrograde  movement,  and,  judging  from  the 
moral  and  physical  character  of  the  first  genera 
tion  of  Australians,  has  not  yet  proved  a  success 
ful  experiment.  The  eastern  Tartars  think  that 
there  is  nothing  west  beyond  Thibet.  "  The 
world  ends  there,"  say  they,  "  beyond  there  is 
nothing  but  a  shoreless  sea."  It  is  unmitigated 
East  where  they  live. 

We  go  eastward  to  realize  history  and  study 
the  works  of  art  and  literature,  retracing  _the 
steps  of  the  race ;  we  go  westward  as  into  the 
future,  with  a  spirit  of  enterprise  and  adventure. 
The  Atlantic  is  a  Lethean  stream,  in  our  pas 
sage  over  which  we  have  had  an  opportunity  to 
forget  the  Old  World  and  its  institutions.  If  we 
do  not  succeed  this  time,  there  is  perhaps  one 
more  chance  for  the  race  left  before  it  arrives  on 
the  banks  of  the  Styx ;  and  that  is  in  the  Lethe 
of  the  Pacific,  which  is  three  times  as  wide. 

12 


178  WALKING. 

I  know  not  how  significant  it  is,  or  how  far  it 
is  an  evidence  of  singularity,  that  an  individual 
should  thus  consent  in  his  pettiest  walk  with  the 
general  movement  of  the  race ;  but  I  know  that 
something  akin  to  the  migratory  instinct  in  birds 
and  quadrupeds,  —  which,  in  some  instances,  is 
known  to  have  affected  the  squirrel  tribe,  impel 
ling  them  to  a  general  and  mysterious  movement, 
in  which  they  were  seen,  say  some,  crossing  the 
broadest  rivers,  each  on  its  particular  chip,  with 
its  tail  raised  for  a  sail,  and  bridging  narrower 
streams  with  their  dead,  —  that  something  like 
the  furor  which  affects  the  domestic  cattle  in  the 
spring,  and  which  is  referred  to  a  worm  in  their 
tails,  —  affects  both  nations  and  individuals, 
either  perennially  or  from  time  to  time.  Not 
a  flock  of  wild  geese  cackles  over  our  town,  but 
it  to  some  extent  unsettles  the  value  of  real 
estate  here,  and,  if  I  were  a  broker,  I  should 
probably  take  that  disturbance  into  account. 

"  Than  longen  folk  to  gon  on  pilgrimages, 
And  palmeres  for  to  seken  strange  strondes." 

Every  sunset  which  I  witness  inspires  me 
with  the  desire  to  go  to  a  West  as  distant  and 
as  fair  as  that  into  which  the  sun  goes  down. 
He  appears  to  migrate  westward  daily,  and 
tempt  us  to  follow  him.  He  is  the  Great 
Western  Pioneer  whom  the  nations  follow. 


WALKING.  179 

We  dream  all  night  of  those  mountain-ridges 
in  the  horizon,  though  they  may  be  of  vapor 
only,  which  were  last  gilded  by  his  rays.  The 
island  of  Atlantis,  and  the  islands  and  gardens 
of  the  Hesperides,  a  sort  of  terrestrial  par 
adise,  appear  to  have  been  the  Great  West  of 
the  ancients,  enveloped  in  mystery  and  poetry. 
Who  has  not  seen  in  imagination,  when  look 
ing  into  the  sunset  sky,  the  gardens  of  the  Hes 
perides,  and  the  foundation  of  all  those  fables  ? 
Columbus  felt  the  westward  tendency  more 
strongly  than  any  before.  He  obeyed  it,  and 
found  a  New  World  for  Castile  and  Leon.  The 
herd  of  men  in  those  days  scented  fresh  pastures 
from  afar. 

"  And  now  the  sun  had  stretched  out  all  the  hills, 
And  now  was  dropped  into  the  western  bay ; 
At  last  lie  rose,  and  twitched  his  mantle  blue  ; 
To-morrow  to  fresh  woods  and  pastures  new." 

Where  on  the  globe  can  there  be  found  an 
area  of  equal  extent  with  that  occupied  by 
the  bulk  of  our  States,  so  fertile  and  so  rich 
and  varied  in  its  productions,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  habitable  by  the  European,  as  this 
is  ?  Michaux,  who  knew  but  part  of  them, 
says  that  "  the  species  of  large  trees  are  much 
more  numerous  in  North  America  than  in  Eu 
rope  ;  in  the  United  States  there  are  more  than 


180  WALKING. 

one  hundred  and  forty  species  that  exceed  thirty 
feet  in  height ;  in  France  there  are  but  thirty 
that  attain  this  size."  Later  botanists  more 
than  confirm  his  observations.  Humboldt  came 
to  America  to  realize  his  youthful  dreams  of 
a  tropical  vegetation,  and  he  beheld  it  in  its 
greatest  perfection  in  the  primitive  forests  of 
the  Amazon,  the  most  gigantic  wilderness  on 
the  earth,  which  he  has  so  eloquently  described 
The  geographer  Guyot,  himself  a  European, 
goes  farther,  —  farther  than  I  am  ready  to  fol 
low  him ;  yet  not  when  he  says,  — "  As  the 
plant  is  made  for  the  animal,  as  the  vegetable 
world  is  made  for  the  animal  world,  America 

is  made  for  the  man  of  the  Old  World 

The  man  of  the  Old  World  sets  out  upon  his 
way.  Leaving  the  highlands  of  Asia,  he  de 
scends  from  station  to  station  towards  Europe. 
Each  of  his  steps  is  marked  by  a  new  civili 
zation  superior  to  the  preceding,  by  a  greater 
power  of  development.  Arrived  at  the  Atlantic, 
he  pauses  on  the  shore  of  this  unknown  ocean, 
the  bounds  of  which  he  knows  not,  and  turns 
upon  his  footprints  for  an  instant."  When  he 
has  exhausted  the  rich  soil  of  Europe,  and  rein- 
vigorated  himself,  "  then  recommences  his  ad 
venturous  career  westward  as  in  the  earliest 
ages."  So  far  Guyot. 

From  this  western  impulse  coming  in  contact 


WALKING.  181 

with  the  barrier  of  the  Atlantic  sprang  the  com 
merce  and  enterprise  of  modern  times.  The 
younger  Michaux,  in  his  "  Travels  West  of  the 
Alleghanies  in  1802,"  says  that  the  common 
inquiry  in  the  newly  settled  West  was,  " '  From 
what  part  of  the  world  have  you  come  ? '  As 
if  these  vast  and  fertile  regions  would  naturally 
be  the  place  of  meeting  and  common  country 
of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe." 

To  use  an  obsolete  Latin  word,  I  might  say, 
Ex  Oriente  lux  ;  ex  Occident e  FRUX.  From  the 
East  light;  from  the  West  fruit. 

Sir  Francis  Head,  an  English  traveller  and 
a  Governor-General  of  Canada,  tells  us  that 
"  in  both  the  northern  and  southern  hemi 
spheres  of  the  New  World,  Nature  has  not  only 
outlined  her  works  on  a  larger  scale,  but  has 
painted  the  whole  picture  with  brighter  and 
more  costly  colors  than  she  used  in  delineating 

and  in  beautifying  the  Old  World The 

heavens  of  America  appear  infinitely  higher,  the 
sky  is  bluer,  the  air  is  fresher,  the  cold  is  intenser, 
the  moon  looks  larger,  the  stars  are  brighter, 
the  thunder  is  louder,  the  lightning  is  vivider, 
the  wind  is  stronger,  the  rain  is  heavier,  the 
mountains  are  higher,  the  rivers  longer,  the  for 
ests  bigger,  the  plains  broader."  This  statement 
will  do  at  least  to  set  against  BufFon's  account 
of  this  part  of  the  world  and  its  productions. 


182  WALKING. 

Linnaeus  said  long  ago,  "  Nescio  quae  facies 
Iceta,  glabra  plantis  Americanis  :  I  know  not 
what  there  is  of  joyous  and  smooth  in  the 
aspect  of  American  plants  ; "  and  I  think  that 
in  this  country  there  are  no,  or  at  most  very 
few,  Africance  bestice,  African  beasts,  as  the 
Romans  called  them,  and  that  in  this  respect 
also  it  is  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  habitation 
of  man.  We  are  told  that  within  three  miles 
of  the  centre  of  the  East-Indian  city  of  Singa 
pore,  some  of  the  inhabitants  are  annually  car 
ried  off  by  tigers ;  but  the  traveller  can  lie  down 
in  the  woods  at  night  almost  anywhere  in  North 
America  without  fear  of  wild  beasts. 

These  are  encouraging  testimonies.  If  the 
moon  looks  larger  here  than  in  Europe,  prob 
ably  the  sun  looks  larger  also.  If  the  heavens 
of  America  appear  infinitely  higher,  and  the 
stars  brighter,  I  trust  that  these  facts  are  sym 
bolical  of  the  height  to  which  the  philosophy 
and  poetry  and  religion  of  her  inhabitants  may 
one  day  soar.  At  length,  perchance,  the  imma 
terial  heaven  will  appear  as  much  higher  to  the 
American  mind,  and  the  intimations  that  star  it 
as  much  brighter.  For  I  believe  that  climate 
«  /  does  thus  react  on  man, —  as  there  is  something 
in  the  mountain -air  that  feeds  the  spirit  ana 
inspires.  Will  not  man  grow  to  greater  perfec 
tion  intellectually  as  well  as  physically  under 


WALKING.  183 

these  influences?  Or  is  it  unimportant  how 
many  foggy  days  there  are  in  his  life  ?  I 
trust  that  we  shall  be  more  imaginative,  that 
our  thoughts  will  be  clearer,  fresher,  and  more 
ethereal,  as  our  sky,  —  our  understanding  more 
comprehensive  and  broader,  like  our  plains,  — 
our  intellect  generally  on  a  grander  scale,  like 
our  thunder  and  lightning,  our  rivers  and  moun 
tains  and  forests, —  and  our  hearts  shall  even 
correspond  in  breadth  and  depth  and  grandeur 
to  our  inland  seas.  Perchance  there  will  ap 
pear  to  the  traveller  something,  he  knows  not 
what,  of  Iccta  and  glabra,  of  joyous  and  se 
rene,  in  our  very  faces.  Else  to  what  end  does 
the  world  go  on,  and  why  was  America  dis 
covered  ? 

To  Americans  I  hardly  need  to  say,  — 

"  Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way." 

As  a  true  patriot,  I  should  be  ashamed  to  think 
that  Adam  in  paradise  was  more  favorably  sit 
uated  on  the  whole  than  the  backwoodsman  in 
this  country. 

Our  sympathies  in  Massachusetts  are  not 
confined  to  New  England ;  though  we  may  be 
estranged  from  the  South,  we  sympathize  with 
the  West.  There  is  the  home  of  the  younger 
sons,  as  among  the  Scandinavians  they  took  to 
the  sea  for  their  inheritance.  It  is  too  late  to 


184  WALKI NG. 

be  studying  Hebrew;  it  is  more  important  to 
understand  even  the  slang  of  to-day. 

Some  months  ago  I  went  to  see  a  pano 
rama  of  the  Rhine.  It  was  like  a  dream  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  I  floated  down  its  historic 
stream  in  something  more  than  imagination, 
under  bridges  built  by  the  Romans,  and  re* 
paired  by  later  heroes,  past  cities  and  castles 
whose  very  names  were  music  to  my  ears,  and 
each  of  which  was  the  subject  of  a  legend. 
There  were  Ehrenbreitstein  and  Rolandseck 
and  Coblentz,  which  I  knew  only  in  history. 
They  were  ruins  that  interested  me  chiefly. 
There  seemed  to  come  up  from  its  waters 
and  its  vine-clad  hills  and  valleys  a  hushed 
music  as  of  Crusaders  departing  for  the  Holy 
Land.  I  floated  along  under  the  spell  of  en 
chantment,  as  if  I  had  been  transported  to  an 
heroic  age,  and  breathed  an  atmosphere  of 
chivalry. 

Soon  after,  I  went  to  see  a  panorama  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  as  I  worked  my  way  up  the 
river  in  the  light  of  to-day,  and  saw  the  steam 
boats  wooding  up,  counted  the  rising  cities, 
gazed  on  the  fresh  ruins  of  Nauvoo,  beheld 
the  Indians  moving  west  across  the  stream, 
and,  as  before  I  had  looked  up  the  Moselle 
now  looked  up  the  Ohio  and  the  Missouri 
and  heard  the  legends  of  Dubuau«5  and  ot 


WALKING.  185 

Wenona's  Cliff,  —  still  thinking  more  of  the 
future  than  of  the  past  or  present, —  I  saw  that 
this  was  a  Rhine  stream  of  a  different  kind  ; 
that  the  foundations  of  castles  were  yet  to  be 
laid,  and  the  famous  bridges  were  yet  to  be 
thrown  over  the  river ;  and  I  felt  that  this  was 
the  heroic  age  itself,  though  we  know  it  not,  for 
the  hero  is  commonly  the  simplest  and  obscurest  \* 
of  men. 

The  West  of  which  I  speak  is  but  another 
name  for  the  Wild ;  and  what  I  have  been  pre 
paring  to  say  is,  that  in  Wildness  is  the  preser 
vation  of  the  World.  Every  tree  sends  its  fibres 
forth  in  search  of  the  Wild.  The  cities  import 
it  at  any  price.  Men  plough  and  sail  for  it. 
From  the  forest  and  wilderness  come  the  tonics 
and  barks  which  brace  mankind.  Our  ancestors 
were  savages.  The  story  of  Romulus  and  Re 
mus  being  suckled  by  a  wolf  is  not  a  meaning 
less  fable.  The  founders  of  every  State  which 
has  risen  to  eminence  have  drawn  their  nourish 
ment  and  vigor  from  a  similar  wild  source.  It 
was  because  the  children  of  the  Empire  were 
not  suckled  by  the  wolf  that  they  were  con 
quered  and  displaced  by  the  children  of  the 
Northern  forests  who  were. 

I  believe  in  the  forest,  and  in  the  meadow, 
and  in  the  night  in  which  the  corn  grows.  We 


186  WALKING. 

require  an  infusion  of  hemlock-spruce  or  arbor 
vitse  in  our  tea.  There  is  a  difference  between 
eating  and  drinking  for  strength  and  from  mere 
gluttony.  The  Hottentots  eagerly  devour  the 
marrow  of  the  koodoo  and  other  antelopes  raw, 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Some  of  our  Northern 
Indians  eat  raw  the  marrow  of  the  Arctic  rein 
deer,  as  well  as  various  other  parts,  including 
the  summits  of  the  antlers,  as  long  as  they  are 
soft.  And  herein,  perchance,  they  have  stolen  a 
march  on  the  cooks  of  Paris.  They  get  what 
usually  goes  to  feed  the  fire.  This  is  probably 
better  than  stall-fed  beef  and  slaughter-house 
pork  to  make  a  man  of.  Give  me  a  wildness 
whose  glance  no  civilization  can  endure,  —  as 
if  we  lived  on  the  marrow  of  koodoos  devoured 
raw. 

There  are  some  intervals  which  border  the 
strain  of  the  wood -thrush,  to  which  I  would 
migrate,  —  wild  lands  where  no  settler  has  squat 
ted  ;  to  which,  methinks,  I  am  already  accli 
mated. 

The  African  hunter  Cummings  tells  us  that 
the  skin  of  the  eland,  as  well  as  that  of  most 
other  antelopes  just  killed,  emits  the  most  de 
licious  perfume  of  trees  and  grass.  I  would 
have  every  man  so  much  like  a  wild  antelope, 
so  much  a  part  and  parcel  of  Nature,  that  his 
very  person  should  thus  sweetly  advertise  our 


WALKING.  187 

senses  of  his  presence,  and  remind  us  of  those 
parts  of  Nature  which  he  most  haunts.  1  feel 
no  disposition  to  be  satirical,  when  the  trapper's 
coat  emits  the  odor  of  musquash  even  ;  it  is  a 
sweeter  scent  to  me  than  that  which  commonly 
exhales  from  the  merchant's  or  the  scholar's  gar 
ments.  When  I  go  into  their  wardrobes  and 
handle  their  vestments,  I  am  reminded  of  no 
grassy  plains  and  flowery  meads  which  they 
have  frequented,  but  of  dusty  merchants'  ex 
changes  and  libraries  rather. 

A  tanned  skin  is  something  more  than  re 
spectable,  and  perhaps  olive  is  a  fitter  color 
than  white  for  a  man,  —  a  denizen  of  the 
woods.  "  The  pale  white  man ! "  I  do  not 
wonder  that  the  African  pitied  him.  Darwin 
the  naturalist  says,  "  A  white  man  bathing  by 
the  side  of  a  Tahitian  was  like  a  plant  bleached 
by  the  gardener's  art,  compared  with  a  fine,  dark 
green  one,  growing  vigorously  in  the  open  fields." 

Ben  Jonson  exclaims,  — 

"  How  near  to  good  is  what  is  fair  !  " 
So  I  would  say,  — 

How  near  to  good  is  what  is  wild  ! 

Life  consists  with  wildness.  The  most  alive  is 
the  wildest.  Not  yet  subdued  to  man,  its  pres 
ence  refreshes  him.  One  who  pressed  forward 
incessantly  and  never  rested  from  his  labors, 


188  WALKING. 

who  grew  fast  and  made  infinite  demands  on 
life,  would  always  find  himself  in  a  new  country 
or  wilderness,  and  surrounded  by  the  raw  mate 
rial  of  life.  He  would  be  climbing  over  the 
prostrate  stems  of  primitive  forest-trees. 

Hope  and  the  future  for  me  are  not  in  lawns 
and  cultivated  fields,  not  in  towns  and  cities, 
but  in  the  impervious  and  quaking  swamps. 
When,  formerly,  I  have  analyzed  my  partiality 
for  some  farm  which  I  had  contemplated  pur 
chasing,  1  have  frequently  found  that  I  was 
attracted  solely  by  a  few  square  rods  of  imper 
meable  and  unfathomable  bog,  —  a  natural  sink 
in  one  corner  of  it.  That  was  the  jewel  which 
dazzled  me.  I  derive  more  of  my  subsistence 
from  the  swamps  which  surround  my  native 
town  than  from  the  cultivated  gardens  in  the 
village.  There  are  no  richer  parterres  to  my 
eyes  than  the  dense  beds  of  dwarf  andromeda 
(Cassandra  calyculata)  which  cover  these  ten 
der  places  on  the  earth's  surface.  Botany  can 
not  go  farther  than  tell  me  the  names  of  the 
shrubs  which  grow  there,  —  the  high-blueberry, 
panicled  andromeda,  lamb-kill,  azalea,  and  rho- 
dora,  —  all  standing  in  the  quaking  sphagnum. 
I  often  think  that  I  should  like  to  have  my 
house  front  on  this  mass  of  dull  red  bushes, 
omitting  other  flower  plots  and  borders,  trans 
planted  spruce  and  trim  box,  even  gravelled 


WALKING.  189 

walks,  —  to  have  this  fertile  spot  under  my 
windows,  not  a  few  imported  barrow-fulls  of 
soil  only  to  cover  the  sand  which  was  thrown 
out  in  digging  the  cellar.  Why  not  put  my 
house,  my  parlor,  behind  this  plot,  instead  of 
behind  that  meagre  assemblage  of  curiosities, 
that  poor  apology  for  a  Nature  and  Art,  which 
I  call  my  front-yard  ?  It  is  an  effort  to  clear  up 
and  make  a  decent  appearance  when  the  car 
penter  and  mason  have  departed,  though  done 
as  much  for  the  passer-by  as  the  dweller  within. 
The  most  tasteful  front-yard  fence  was  never  an 
agreeable  object  of  study  to  me ;  the  most  elab 
orate  ornaments,  acorn-tops,  or  what  not,  soon 
wearied  and  disgusted  me.  Bring  your  sills  up 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  swamp,  then,  (though  it 
may  not  be  the  best  place  for  a  dry  cellar,)  so 
that  there  be  no  access  on  that  side  to  citizens. 
Front-yards  are  not  made  to  walk  in,  but,  at  most, 
through,  and  you  could  go  in  the  back  way. 

Yes,  though  you  may  think  me  perverse,  if  it 
were  proposed  to  me  to  dwell  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  the  most  beautiful  garden  that  ever  hu 
man  art  contrived,  or  else  of  a  Dismal  swamp,  I 
should  certainly  decide  for  the  swamp.  How 
vain,  then,  have  been  all  your  labors,  citizens, 
for  me! 

My  spirits  infallibly  rise  in  proportion  to  the  \j 
outward   dreariness.      Give  me  the   ocean,  the 


190  WALKING. 

desert  or  the  wilderness!  In  the  desert,  pure 
air  and  solitude  compensate  for  want  of  moist 
ure  and  fertility.  The  traveller  Burton  says  of 
it, — "  Your  morale  improves  ;  you  become  frank 
and  cordial,  hospitable  and  single-minded.  .  .  . 
In  the  desert,  spirituous  liquors  excite  only  dis 
gust.  There  is  a  keen  enjoyment  in  a  mere 
animal  existence."  They  who  have  been  trav 
elling  long  on  the  steppes  of  Tartary  say, — 
"  On  reentering  cultivated  lands,  the  agitation, 
perplexity,  and  turmoil  of  civilization  oppressed 
and  suffocated  us;  the  air  seemed  to  fail  us, 
and  we  felt  every  moment  as  if  about  to  die 
of  asphyxia."  When  I  would  recreate  myself, 
I  seek  the  darkest  wood,  the  thickest  and  most 
interminable,  and,  to  the  citizen,  most  dismal 
swamp.  I  enter  a  swamp  as  a  sacred  place,  — 
a  sanctum  sanctorum.  There  is  the  strength,  the 
marrow  of  Nature.  The  wild-wood  covers  the* 
virgin  mould,  —  and  the  same  soil  is  good  foi 
men  and  for  trees.  A  man's  health  requires  as 
many  acres  of  meadow  to  his  prospect  as  his 
farm  does  loads  of  muck.  There  are  the  strong 
meats  on  which  he  feeds.  A  town  is  saved,  not 
more  by  the  righteous  men  in  it  than  by  the 
woods  and  swamps  that  surround  it.  A  town 
ship  where  one  primitive  forest  waves  abovt,, 
while  another  primitive  forest  rots  below,  — 
such  a  town  is  fitted  to  raise  not  only  coin 


WALKING.  191 

and  potatoes,  but  poets  and  philosophers  for 
the  coming  ages.  In  such  a  soil  grew  Homer 
and  Confucius  and  the  rest,  and  out  of  such  a 
wilderness  comes  the  Reformer  eating  locusts 
and  wild  honey. 

To  preserve  wild  animals  implies  generally 
the  creation  of  a  forest  for  them  to  dwell  in  or 
resort  to.  So  it  is  with  man.  A  hundred  years 
ago  they  sold  bark  in  our  streets  peeled  from 
our  own  woods.  In  the  very  aspect  of  those 
primitive  and  rugged  trees,  there  was,  methinks, 
a  tanning  principle  which  hardened  and  consol 
idated  the  fibres  of  men's  thoughts.  Ah!  already 
I  shudder  for  these  comparatively  degenerate 
days  of  my  native  village,  when  you  cannot  col 
lect  a  load  of  bark  of  good  thickness,  —  and  we 
no  longer  produce  tar  and  turpentine. 

The  civilized  nations  —  Greece,  Rome,  Eng 
land —  have  been  sustained  by  the  primitive  for 
ests  which  anciently  rotted  where   they  stand. 
They  survive  as  long  as  the  soil  is  not  exhausted. 
Alas  for  human  culture !  little  is  to  be  expected  . 
of  a  nation,  when  the  vegetable  mould  is  exhaust 
ed,  and  it  is  compelled  to  make  manure  of  the   k 
bones  of  its  fathers.     There  the   poet  sustains 
himself  merely  by  his  own  superfluous  fat,  and 
the  philosopher  comes  down  on  his  marrow-bones. 

It  is  said  to  be  the  task  of  the  American  "  to 
work  the  virgin  soil,"  and  that  "  agriculture  here 


192  WALKING. 

already  assumes  proportions  unknown  every 
where  else."  I  think  that  the  farmer  displaces 
the  Indian  even  because  he  redeems  the  meadowjr 
and  so  makes  himself  stronger  and  in  some  re 
spects  more  natural.  I  was  surveying  for  a  man 
the  other  day  a  single  straight  line  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  rods  long,  through  a  swamp,  at 
whose  entrance  might  have  been  written  the 
words  which  Dante  read  over  the  entrance  to 
the  infernal  regions,  —  "  Leave  all  hope,  ye  that 
enter," — that  is,  of  ever  getting  out  again ;  where 
at  one  time  I  saw  my  employer  actually  up  to 
his  neck  and  swimming  for  his  life  in  his  prop 
erty,  though  it  was  still  winter.  He  had  an 
other  similar  swamp  which  I  could  not  survey 
at  all,  because  it  was  completely  under  water, 
and  nevertheless,  with  regard  to  a  third  swamp, 
which  I  did  survey  from  a  distance,  he  remarked 
to  me,  true  to  his  instincts,  that  he  would  not 
part  with  it  for  any  consideration,  on  account 
of  the  mud  which  it  contained.  And  that  man 
intends  to  put  a  girdling  ditch  round  the  whole 
in  the  course  of  forty  months,  and  so  redeem  it 
by  the  magic  of  his  spade.  I  refer  to  him  only 
as  the  type  of  a  class. 

The  weapons  with  which  we  have  gained 
our  most  important  victories,  which  should  be 
handed  down  as  heirlooms  from  father  to  son, 
are  not  the  sword  and  the  lance,  but  the  bush- 


WALKING.  193 

whack,  the  turf-cutter,  the  spade,  and  the  bog-hoe, 
rusted  with  the  blood  of  many  a  meadow,  and 
begrimed  with  the  dust  of  many  a  hard-fought 
field.  The  very  winds  blew  the  Indian's  corn 
field  into  the  meadow,  and  pointed  out  the  way 
which  he  had  not  the  skill  to  follow.  He  had 
no  better  implement  with  which  to  intrench 
himself  in  the  land  than  a  clam-shell.  But  the 
farmer  is  armed  with  plough  and  spade. 

In  Literature  it  is  only  the  wild  that  attracts 
us.  Dulness  is  but  another  name  for  tameness. 
It  is  the  uncivilized  free  and  wild  thinking  in 
"  Hamlet "  and  the  "  Iliad,"  in  all  the  Scriptures 
and  Mythologies,  not  learned  in  the  schools,  that 
delights  us.  As  the  wild  duck  is  more  swift  and 
beautiful  than  the  tame,  so  is  the  wild  —  the 
mallard  —  thought,  which  'mid  falling  dews 
wings  its  way  above  the  fens.  A  truly  good 
book  is  something  as  natural,  and  as  unexpect 
edly  and  unaccountably  fair  and  perfect,  as  a 
wild  flower  discovered  on  the  prairies  of  the 
West  or  in  the  jungles  of  the  East.  Genius 
is  a  light  which  makes  the  darkness  visible,  like 
the  lightning's  flash,  which  perchance  shatters 
the  temple  of  knowledge  itself,  —  and  not  a 
taper  lighted  at  the  hearth-stone  of  the  race, 
which  pales  before  the  light  of  common  day. 

English  literatuie,  from  the  days  of  the  min 
strels  to  the  Lake  Poets,  —  Chaucer  and  Spen- 
13 


194  WALKING. 

ser  and  Milton,  and  even  Shakspeare,  included, 

—  breathes  no  quite  fresh  and  in  this  sense  wild 
strain.     It  is  an  essentially  tame  and  civilized 
literature,  reflecting   Greece   and   Rome.      Her 
wilderness  is  a  green  wood,  —  her  wild  man  a 
Robin  Hood.     There  is  plenty  of  genial  love  of 
Nature,  but  not  so  much  of  Nature  herself.    Her 
chronicles  inform  us  when  her  wild  animals,  but 
not  when  the  wild  man  in  her,  became  extinct. 

The  science  of  Humboldt  is  one  thing,  poetry 
is  another  thing.  The  poet  to-day,  notwith 
standing  all  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  the 
accumulated  learning  of  mankind,  enjoys  no 
advantage  over  Homer. 

Where  is  the  literature  which  gives  expres 
sion  to  Nature  ?  He  would  be  a  poet  who 
could  impress  the  winds  and  streams  into  his 
service,  to  speak  for  him ;  who  nailed  words  to 
their  primitive  senses,  as  farmers  drive  down 
stakes  in  the  spring,  which  the  frost  has  heaved ; 
who  derived  his  words  as  often  as  he  used  them, 

—  transplanted  them  to  his  page  with  earth  ad 
hering  to  their  roots ;  whose  words  were  so  true 
and  fresh  and  natural  that  they  would  appear  to 
expand  like  the  buds  at  the  approach  of  spring, 
though    they  lay   half-smothered  between   two 
musty  leaves  in  a  library,  —  ay,  to  bloom  and 
bear  fruit  there,  after  their  kind,  annually,  for 
the  faithful  reader,  in  sympathy  with  surround 
ing  Nature. 


WALKING.  195 

I  do  not  know  of  any  poetry  to  quote  which 
adequately  expresses  this  yearning  for  the  Wild. 
Approached  from  this  side,  the  best  poetry  is 
tarne.  I  do  not  know  where  to  find  in  any  lit 
erature,  ancient  or  modern,  any  account  which 
contents  me  of  that  Nature  with  which  even  I 
am  acquainted.  You  will  perceive  that  I  de 
mand  something  which  no  Augustan  nor  Eliza 
bethan  age,  which  no  culture,  in  short,  can  give. 
Mythology  comes  nearer  to  it  than  anything. 
How  much  more  fertile  a  Nature,  at  least,  has 
Grecian  mythology  its  root  in  than  English  lit 
erature  !  Mythology  is  the  crop  which  the  Old 
World  bore  before  its  soil  was  exhausted,  before 
the  fancy  and  imagination  were  affected  with 
blight ;  and  which  it  still  bears,  wherever  its 
pristine  vigor  is  unabated.  All  other  literatures 
endure  only  as  the  elms  which  overshadow  our 
houses ;  but  this  is  like  the  great  dragon-tree  of 
the  Western  Isles,  as  old  as  mankind,  and, 
whether  that  does  or  not,  will  endure  as  long ; 
for  the  decay  of  other  literatures  makes  the  soil 
in  which  it  thrives. 

The  West  is  preparing  to  add  its  fables  to 
those  of  the  East.  The  valleys  of  the  Ganges, 
the  Nile,  and  the  Rhine,  having  yielded  their 
crop,  it  remains  to  be  seen  what  the  valleys  of 
the  Amazon,  the  Plate,  the  Orinoco,  the  St.  Law 
rence,  and  the  Mississippi  will  produce.  Per- 


196  WALKING. 

chance,  when,  in  the  course  of  ages,  American 
liberty  has  become  a  fiction  of  the  past,  —  as  it 
is  to  some  extent  a  fiction  of  the  present,  —  the 
poets  of  the  world  will  be  inspired  by  American 
mythology. 

The  wildest  dreams  of  wild  men,  even,  are 
not  the  less  true,  though  they  may  not  recom 
mend  themselves  to  the  sense  which  is  most 
common  among  Englishmen  and  Americans  to 
day.  It  is  not  every  truth  that  recommends 
itself  to  the  common  sense.  Nature  has  a  place 
for  the  wild  clematis  as  well  as  for  the  cabbage. 
Some  expressions  of  truth  are  reminiscent, — 
others  merely  sensible^  as  the  phrase  is,  —  others 
prophetic.  Some  forms  of  disease,  even,  may 
prophesy  forms  of  health.  The  geologist  has 
discovered  that  the  figures  of  serpents,  griffins, 
flying  dragons,  and  other  fanciful  embellish 
ments  of  heraldry,  have  their  prototypes  in  the 
forms  of  fossil  species  which  were  extinct  be 
fore  man  was  created,  and  hence  "  indicate  a 
faint  and  shadowy  knowledge  of  a  previous  state 
of  organic  existence."  The  Hindoos  dreamed 
that  the  earth  rested  on  an  elephant,  and  the 
elephant  on  a  tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  on  a  ser 
pent;  and  though  it  may  be  an  unimportant 
coincidence,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to 
state,  that  a  fossil  tortoise  has  lately  been  dis 
covered  in  Asia  large  enough  to  support  an  ele- 


WALKING.  197 

phant.    I  confess  that  I  am  partial  to  these  wild 
fancies,  which  transcend  the  order  of  time  and  •. 
development.       They  are  the  sublimest  recrea 
tion  of  the  intellect.     The  partridge  loves  peas, 
but  not  those  that  go  with  her  into  the  pot. 

In  short,  all  good  things  are  wild  and  free. 
There  is  something  in  a  strain  of  music,  whether 
produced  by  an  instrument  or  by  the  human 
voice,  —  take  the  sound  of  a  bugle  in  a  summer 
night,  for  instance, — which  by  its  wildness,  to 
speak  without  satire,  reminds  me  of  the  cries 
emitted  by  wild  beasts  in  their  native  forests. 
It  is  so  much  of  their  wildness  as  I  can  under 
stand.  Give  me  for  my  friends  and  neighbors 
wild  men,  not  tame  ones.  The  wildness  of  the 
savage  is  but  a  faint  symbol  of  the  awful  ferity 
with  which  good  men  and  lovers  meet. 

I  love  even  to  see  the  domestic  animals  re 
assert  their  native  rights,  —  any  evidence  that 
they  have  not  wholly  lost  their  original  wild 
habits  and  vigor ;  as  when  my  neighbor's  cow 
breaks  out  of  her  pasture  early  in  the  spring 
and  boldly  swims  the  river,  a  cold,  gray  tide, 
twenty-five  or  thirty  rods  wide,  swollen  by  the 
melted  snow.  It  is  the  buffalo  crossing  the  Mis- 

O 

sissippi.  This  exploit  confers  some  dignity  on 
the  herd  in  my  eyes,  —  already  dignified.  The 
seeds  of  instinct  are  preserved  under  the  thick 
hides  of  cattle  and  horses,  like  seeds  in  the  bow 
els  of  the  earth,  an  indefinite  period. 


198  WALKING. 

Any  sportiveness  in  cattle  is  unexpected.  I 
saw  one  day  a  herd  of  a  dozen  bullocks  and 
cows  running  about  and  frisking  in  unwieldly 
sport,  like  huge  rats,  even  like  kittens.  They 
shook  their  heads,  raised  their  tails,  and  rushed 
up  and  down  a  hill,  and  I  perceived  by  their 
horns,  as  well  as  by  their  activity,  their  relation 
to  the  deer  tribe.  But,  alas !  a  sudden  loud 
Whoa  !  would  have  damped  their  ardor  at  once, 
reduced  them  from  venison  to  beef,  and  stiffened 
their  sides  and  sinews  like  the  locomotive.  Who 
but  the  Evil  One  has  cried,  "  Whoa !  "  to  man 
kind?  Indeed,  the  life  of  cattle,  like  that  of 
many  men,  is  but  a  sort  of  locomotiveness  ;  they 
move  a  side  at  a  time,  and  man,  by  his  machin 
ery,  is  meeting  the  horse  and  the  ox  half-way. 
Whatever  part  the  whip  has  touched  is  thence 
forth  palsied.  Who  would  ever  think  of  a  side 
of  any  of  the  supple  cat  tribe,  as  we  speak  of  a 
side  of  beef? 

I  rejoice  that  horses  and  steers  have  to  be 
broken  before  they  can  be  made  the  slaves  of 
men,  and  that  men  themselves  have  some  wild 
oats  still  left  to  sow  before  they  become  submis 
sive  members  of  society.  Undoubtedly,  all  men 
are  not  equally  fit  subjects  for  civilization ;  and 
because  the  majority,  like  dogs  and  sheep,  are 
tame  by  inherited  disposition,  this  is  no  reason 
V  why  the  others  should  have  their  natures  broken 


WALKING.  199 

that  they  may  be  reduced  to  the  same  level. 
Men  are  in  the  main  alike,  but  they  were  made 
several  in  order  that  they  might  be  various.  If 
a  low  use  is  to  be  served,  one  man  will  do  nearly 
or  quite  as  well  as  another  ;  if  a  high  one,  indi 
vidual  excellence  is  to  be  regarded.  Any  man 
can  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away,  but  no 
other  man  could  serve  so  rare  a  use  as  the  au 
thor  of  this  illustration  did.  Confucius  says,  — 
"  The  skins  of  the  tiger  and  the  leopard,  when 
they  are  tanned,  are  as  the  skins  of  the  dog  and 
the  sheep  tanned."  But  it  is  not  the  part  of  a 
true  culture  to  tame  tigers,  any  more  than  it  is  to 
make  sheep  ferocious;  and  tanning  their  skins 
for  shoes  is  not  the  best  use  to  which  they  can 
be  put 

When  looking  over  a  list  of  men's  names  in 
a  foreign  language,  as  of  military  officers,  or  of 
authors  who  have  written  on  a  particular  subject, 
I  am  reminded  once  more  that  there  is  nothing 
in  a  name.  The  name  Menschikoff,  for  instance, 
has  nothing  in  it  to  my  ears  more  human  than 
a  whisker,  and  it  may  belong  to  a  rat.  As  the 
names  of  the  Poles  and  Russians  are  to  us,  so 
are  ours  to  them.  It  is  as  if  they  had  been  named 
by  the  child's  rigmarole,  —  lery  wiery  ichery  van, 
tittie-lol-tan.  I  see  in  my  mind  a  herd  of  wild 
Creatures  swarming  over  the  earth,  and  to  each 


200  WALKING. 

the  herdsman  has  affixed  some  barbarous  sound 
in  his  own  dialect.  The  names  of  men  are  of 
course  as  cheap  and  meaningless  as  Bose  and 
Tray,  the  names  of  dogs. 

Methinks  it  would  be  some  advantage  to  phi 
losophy,  if  men  were  named  merely  in  the  gross, 
as  they  are  known.  It  would  be  necessary  only 
to  know  the  genus  and  perhaps  the  race  or  va 
riety,  to  know  the  individual.  We  are  not  pre 
pared  to  believe  that  every  private  soldier  in  a 
Roman  army  had  a  name  of  his  own,  —  because 
we  have  not  supposed  that  he  had  a  character 
of  his  own.  At  present  our  only  true  names  are 
nicknames.  I  knew  a  boy  who,  from  his  pecu 
liar  energy,  was  called  "  Buster "  by  his  play 
mates,  and  this  rightly  supplanted  his  Christian 
name.  Some  travellers  tell  us  that  an  Indian 
had  no  name  given  him  at  first,  but  earned  it, 
and  his  name  was  his  fame ;  and  among  some 
tribes  he  acquired  a  new  name  with  every  new 
exploit.  It  is  pitiful  when  a  man  bears  a  name 
for  convenience  merely,  who  has  earned  neither 
name  nor  fame. 

I  will  not  allow  mere  names  to  make  distinc 
tions  for  me,  but  still  see  men  in  herds  for  all 
them.  A  familiar  name  cannot  make  a  man 
less  strange  to  me.  It  may  be  given  to  a  savage 
who  retains  in  secret  his  own  wild  title  earned 
in  the  woods.  We  have  a  wild  savage  in  us, 


WALKING.  201 

and  a  savage  name  is  perchance  somewhere  re 
corded  as  ours.  I  see  that  my  neighbor,  who 
bears  the  familiar  epithet  William,  or  Edwin, 
takes  it  off  with  his  jacket.  It  does  not  adhere 
to  him  when  asleep  or  in  anger,  or  aroused  by 
any  passion  or  inspiration.  I  seem  to  hear  pro 
nounced  by  some  of  his  kin  at  such  a  time  his 
original  wild  name  in  some  jaw-breaking  or  else 
melodious  tongue. 

Here  is  this  vast,  savage,  howling  mother  of 
ours,  Nature,  lying  all  around,  with  such  beauty, 
and  such  affection  for  her  children,  as  the  leop 
ard  ;  and  yet  we  are  so  early  weaned  from  her 
breast  to  society,  to  that  culture  which  is  exclu 
sively  an  interaction  of  man  on  man,  —  a  sort 
of  breeding  in  and  in,  which  produces  at  most  a 
merely  English  nobility,  a  civilization  destined 
to  have  a  speedy  limit. 

In  society,  in  the  best  institutions  of  men,  it  is 
easy  to  detect  a  certain  precocity.  When  we 
should  still  be  growing  children,  we  are  already 
little  men.  Give  me  a  culture  which  imports 
much  muck  from  the  meadows,  and  deepens  the 
soil,  —  not  that  which  trusts  to  heating  manures, 
and  improved  implements  and  modes  of  culture 
only ! 

Many  a  poor  sore-eyed  student  that  I  have 
heard  of  would  grow  faster,  both  intellectually 


202  WALKING. 

and  physically,  if,  instead  of  sitting  up  so  very 
late,  he  honestly  slumbered  a  fool's  allowance. 

There  may  be  an  excess  even  of  informing 
light.  Niepce,  a  Frenchman,  discovered  "  actin 
ism,"  that  power  in  the  sun's  rays  which  pro 
duces  a  chemical  effect,  —  that  granite  rocks,  and 
stone  structures,  and  statues  of  metal,  "  are  all 
alike  destructively  acted  upon  during  the  hours 
of  sunshine,  and,  but  for  provisions  of  Nature  no 
less  wonderful,  would  soon  perish  under  the  deli 
cate  touch  of  the  most  subtile  of  the  agencies  of 
the  universe."  But  he  observed  that  "  those 
bodies  which  underwent  this  change  during  the 
daylight  possessed  the  power  of  restoring  them 
selves  to  their  original  conditions  during  the 
hours  of  night,  when  this  excitement  was  no 
longer  influencing  them."  Hence  it  has  been  in 
ferred  that  "  the  hours  of  darkness  are  as  neces 
sary  to  the  inorganic  creation  as  we  know  night 
and  sleep  are  to  the  organic  kingdom."  Not 
even  does  the  moon  shine  every  night,  but  gives 
place  to  darkness. 

I  would  not  have  every  man  nor  every  part  of 
a  man  cultivated,  any  more  than  I  would  have 
every  acre  of  earth  cultivated :  part  will  be  till 
age,  but  the  greater  part  will  be  meadow  and 
forest,  not  only  serving  an  immediate  use,  but 
preparing  a  mould  against  a  distant  future,  by  the 
annual  decay  of  the  vegetation  which  it  supports. 


WALKING.  203 

There  are  other  letters  for  the  child  to  learn 
than  those  which  Cadmus  invented.  The  Span 
iards  have  a  good  term  to  express  this  wild  and 
dusky  knowledge,  —  Gramatica  parda,  tawny 
grammar, —  a  kind  of  mother-wit  derived  from 
that  same  leopard  to  which  I  have  referred. 

We  have  heard  of  a  Society  for  the  Diffusion 
of  Useful  Knowledge.  It  is  said  that  knowledge 
is  power ;  and  the  like.  Methinks  there  is  equal 
need  of  a  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Ig 
norance,  what  we  will  call  Beautiful  Knowledge^ 
a  knowledge  useful  in  a  higher  sense :  for  what 
is  most  of  our  boasted  so-called  knowledge  but 
a  conceit  that  we  know  something,  which  robs 
us  of  the  advantage  of  our  actual  ignorance  ? 
What  we  call  knowledge  is  often  our  positive 
ignorance;  ignorance  our  negative  knowledge. 
By  long  years  of  patient  industry  and  reading  of 
the  newspapers,  —  for  what  are  the  libraries  of 
science  but  files  of  newspapers  ?  —  a  man  accu 
mulates  a  myriad  facts,  lays  them  up  in  his 
memory,  and  then  when  in  some  spring  of  his 
life  hd  saunters  abroad  into  the  Great  Fields  of 
thought,  he,  as  it  were,  goes  to  grass  like  a  horse, 
and  leaves  all  his  harness  behind  in  the  stable. 
I  would  say  to  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of 
Useful  Knowledge,  sometimes,  —  Go  to  grass. 
You  have  eaten  hay  long  enough.  The  spring 
has  come  with  its  green  crop.  The  very  cows 


204  WALKING. 

are  driven  to  their  country  pastures  before  the 
end  of  May  ;  though  I  have  heard  of  one  un 
natural  farmer  who  kept  his  cow  in  the  barn  and 
fed  her  on  hay  all  the  year  round.  So,  fre 
quently,  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful 
Knowledge  treats  its  cattle. 

A  man's  ignorance  sometimes  is  not  only 
useful,  but  beautiful,  —  while  his  knowledge,  so 
called,  is  oftentimes  worse  than  useless,  besides 
being  ugly.  Which  is  the  best  man  to  deal 
with,  —  he  who  knows  nothing  about  a  subject, 
and,  what  is  extremely  rare,  knows  that  he 
knows  nothing,  or  he  who  really  knows  some 
thing  about  it,  but  thinks  that  he  knows  all  ? 

My  desire  for  knowledge  is  intermittent ;  but 
my  desire  to  bathe  my  head  in  atmospheres  un 
known  to  my  feet  is  perennial  and  constant. 
The  highest  that  we  can  attain  to  is  not  Knowl 
edge,  but  Sympathy  with  Intelligence.  I  do 
not  know  that  this  higher  knowledge  amounts 
to  anything  more  definite  than  a  novel  and 
grand  surprise  on  a  sudden  revelation  of  the  in 
sufficiency  of  all  that  we  called  Knowledge  be 
fore,  —  a  discovery  that  there  are  more  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamed  of  in  our 
philosophy.  It  is  the  lighting  up  of  the  mist  by 
the  sun.  Man  cannot  know  in  any  higher  sense 
than  this,  any  more  than  he  can  look  serenely 
and  with  impunity  in  the  face  of  sun  :  'Os  r\ 


WALKING.  205 

ov  KCLVOV  voyo-eis,  —  "  You  will  not  perceive  that, 
as  perceiving  a  particular  thing,"  say  the  Chal 
dean  Oracles. 

There  is  something  servile  in  the  habit  of 
seeking  after  a  law  which  we  may  obey.  We 
may  study  the  laws  of  matter  at  and  for  our 
convenience,  but  a  successful  life  knows  no  law. 
It  is  an  unfortunate  discovery  certainly,  that  of 
a  law  which  binds  us  where  we  did  not  know 
before  that  we  were  bound.  Live  free,  child  of 
the  mist,  —  and  with  respect  to  knowledge  we 
are  all  children  of  the  mist.  The  man  who  takes 
the  liberty  to  live  is  superior  to  all  the  laws,  by 
virtue  of  his  relation  to  the  law-maker.  "  That 
is  active  duty,"  says  the  Vishnu  Purana,  "which 
is  not  for  our  bondage  ;  that  is  knowledge  which 
is  for  our  liberation  :  all  other  duty  is  good  only 
unto  weariness  ;  all  other  knowledge  is  only  the 
cleverness  of  an  artist." 

It  is  remarkable  how  few  events  or  crises 
there  are  in  our  histories  ;  how  little  exercised 
we  have  been  in  our  minds  ;  how  few  experi 
ences  we  have  had.  I  would  fain  be  assured 
that  I  am  growing  apace  and  rankly,  though 
my  very  growth  disturb  this  dull  equanimity, — 
though  it  be  with  struggle  through  long,  dark, 
muggy  nights  or  seasons  of  gloom.  It  would 
be  well,  if  all  our  lives  were  a  divine  tragedy 


206  WALKING. 

even,  instead  of  this  trivial  comedy  or  farce. 
Dante,  Bunyan,  and  others,  appear  to  have  been 
exercised  in  their  minds  more  than  we  :  they 
were  subjected  to  a  kind  of  culture  such  as  our 
district  schools  and  colleges  do  not  contemplate. 
Even  Mahomet,  though  many  may  scream  at 
his  name,  had  a  good  deal  more  to  live  for,  ay, 
and  to  die  for,  than  they  have  commonly. 

When,  at  rare  intervals,  some  thought  visits 
one,  as  perchance  he  is  walking  on  a  railroad, 
then  indeed  the  cars  go  by  without  his  hearing 
them.  But  soon,  by  some  inexorable  law,  our 
life  goes  by  and  the  cars  return. 

"  Gentle  breeze,  that  wanderest  unseen, 
And  bendest  the  thistles  round  Loira  of  storms, 
Traveller  of  the  windy  glens, 
Why  hast  thou  left  my  ear  so  soon  ?  " 

While  almost  all  men  feel  an  attraction  draw 
ing  them  to  society,  few  are  attracted  strongly 
to  Nature.  In  their  relation  to  Nature  men  ap 
pear  to  me  for  the  most  part,  notwithstanding 
their  arts,  lower  than  the  animals.  It  is  not 
often  a  beautiful  relation,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
animals.  How  little  appreciation  of  the  beauty 
of  the  landscape  there  is  among  us !  We  have 
to  be  told  that  the  Greeks  called  the  world 
KoV/xos,  Beauty,  or  Order,  but  we  do  not  see 
clearly  why  they  did  so,  and  we  esteem  it  at 
best  only  a  curious  philological  fact. 


WALKING.  207 

For  my  part,  I  feel  that  with  regard  to  Nature 
I  live  a  sort  of  border  life,  on  the  confines  of  a 
world  into  which  I  make  occasional  and  tran- 
sional  and  transient  forays  only,  and  my  patriot 
ism  and  allegiance  to  the  State  into  whose  ter 
ritories  I  seern  to  retreat  are  those  of  a  moss 
trooper.  Unto  a  life  which  I  call  natural  I 
would  gladly  follow  even  a  will-o'-the-wisp 
through  bogs  and  sloughs  unimaginable,  but  no 
moon  nor  fire-fly  has  shown  me  the  causeway  to 
it.  Nature  is  a  personality  so  vast  and  univer 
sal  that  we  have  never  seen  one  of  her  features. 
The  walker  in  the  familiar  fields  which  stretch 
around  my  native  town  sometimes  finds  him 
self  in  another  land  than  is  described  in  their 
owners'  deeds,  as  it  were  in  some  far-away  field 
on  the  confines  of  the  actual  Concord,  where  her 
jurisdiction  ceases,  and  the  idea  which  the  word 
Concord  suggests  ceases  to  be  suggested.  These 
farms  which  I  have  myself  surveyed,  these 
bounds  which  I  have  set  up,  appear  dimly  still  as 
through  a  mist;  but  they  have  no  chemistry  to 
fix  them ;  they  fade  from  the  surface  of  the  glass  ; 
and  the  picture  which  the  painter  painted  stands 
out  dimly  from  beneath.  The  world  with  which 
we  are  commonly  acquainted  leaves  no  trace, 
and  it  will  have  no  anniversary. 

I  took  a  walk  on  Spaulding's  Farm  the  other 
afternoon.     I  saw  the   setting  sun   lighting  up 


208  WALKING. 

the  opposite  side  of  a  stately  pine  wood.  It3 
golden  rays  straggled  into  the  aisles  of  the  wood 
as  into  some  noble  hall.  I  was  impressed  as  if 
some  ancient  and  altogether  admirable  and  shin 
ing  family  had  settled  there  in  that  part  of  the 
land  called  Concord,  unknown  to  ine,  —  to 
whom  the  sun  was  servant,  —  who  had  not 
gone  into  society  in  the  village,  —  who  had  not 
been  called  on.  I  saw  their  park,  their  pleasure- 
ground,  beyond  through  the  wood,  in  Spauld- 
ing's  cranberry-meadow.  The  pines  furnished 
them  with  gables  as  they  grew.  Their  house 
was  not  obvious  to  vision  ;  the  trees  grew 
through  it.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  heard  the 
sounds  of  a  suppressed  hilarity  or  not.  They 
seemed  to  recline  on  the  sunbeams.  They  have 
sons  and  daughters.  They  are  quite  well.  The 
farmer's  cart-path,  which  leads  directly  through 
their  hall,  does  not  in  the  least  put  them  out,  — 
as  the  muddy  bottom  of  a  pool  is  sometimes 
seen  through  the  reflected  skies.  They  never 
heard  of  Spaulding,  and  do  not  know  that  he  is 
their  neighbor,  —  notwithstanding  I  heard  him 
whistle  as  he  drove  his  team  through  the  house. 
Nothing  can  equal  the  serenity  of  their  lives. 
Their  coat  of  arms  is  simply  a  lichen.  I  saw 
it  painted  on  the  pines  and  oaks.  Their  attics 
were  in  the  tops  of  the  trees.  They  are  of  no 
politics.  There  was  no  noise  of  labor.  I  did 


WALKING.  209 

not  perceive  that  they  were  weaving  or  spin 
ning.  Yet  I  did  detect,  when  the  wind  lulled 
and  hearing  was  done  away,  the  finest  imagin 
able  sweet  musical  hum,  —  as  of  a  distant  hive 
in  May,  which  perchance  was  the  sound  of  then 
thinking.  They  had  no  idle  thoughts,  and  no 
one  without  could  see  their  work,  for  their  in 
dustry  was  not  as  in  knots  and  excrescences 
embayed. 

But  I  find  it  difficult  to  remember  them.  They 
fade  irrevocably  out  of  my  mind  even  now  while 
I  speak  and  endeavor  to  recall  them,  and  recol 
lect  myself.  It  is  only  after  a  long  and  serious 
effort  to  recollect  my  best  thoughts  that  I  be 
come  again  aware  of  their  cohabitancy.  If  it 
were  not  for  such  families  as  this,  I  think  I 
should  move  out  of  Concord. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  in  New  England 
that  few  and  fewer  pigeons  visit  us  every  year. 
Our  forests  furnish  no  mast  for  them.  So,  it 
would  seem,  few  and  fewer  thoughts  visit  each 
growing  man  from  year  to  year,  for  the  grove  in 
our  minds  is  laid  waste,  —  sold  to  feed  unneces 
sary  fires  of  ambition,  or  sent  to  mill,  and  there 
is  scarcely  a  twig  left  for  them  to  perch  on. 
They  no  longer  build  nor  breed  with  us.  In 
some  more  genial  season,  perchance,  a  faint 
shadow  flits  across  the  landscape  of  the  mind, 

14 


J 


210  WALKING. 

cast  by  the  wing's  of  some  thought  in  its  vernal 
or  autumnal  migration,  but,  looking  up,  we  are 
unable  to  detect  the  substance  of  the  thought 
itself.  Our  winged  thoughts  are  turned  to  poul 
try.  They  no  longer  soar,  and  they  attain  only 
to  a  Shanghai  and  Cochin-China  grandeur. 
Those  gra-a-ate  thoughts,  those  gra-a-ate  men 
you  hear  of! 

We  hug  the  earth,  —  how  rarely  we  mount ! 
Methinks  we  might  elevate  ourselves  a  little 
more.  We  might  climb  a  tree,  at  least.  I 
found  my  account  in  climbing  a  tree  once.  It 
was  a  tall  white  pine,  on  the  top  of  a  hill ;  and 
though  I  got  well  pitched,  I  was  well  paid  for 
it,  for  I  discovered  new  mountains  in  the  hori 
zon  which  I  had  never  seen  before,  —  so  much 
more  of  the  earth  and  the  heavens.  I  might 
have  walked  about  the  foot  of  the  tree  for  three 
score  years  and  ten,  and  yet  I  certainly  should 
never  have  seen  them.  But,  above  all,  I  dis 
covered  around  me,  —  it  was  near  the  end  of 
June,  —  on  the  ends  of  the  topmost  branches 
only,  a  few  minute  and  delicate  red  cone-like 
blossoms,  the  fertile  flower  of  the  white  pine 
looking  heavenward.  I  carried  straightway  to 
the  village  the  topmost  spire,  and  showed  it  to 
stranger  jurymen  who  walked  the  streets,  —  for 
it  was  court-week,  —  and  to  farmers  and  mm- 


WALKING.  211 

ber-dealers  and  wood-choppers  and  hunters,  and 
not  one  had  ever  seen  the  like  before,  but  they 
wondered  as  at  a  star  dropped  down.  Tell  of 
ancient  architects  finishing  their  works  on  the 
tops  of  columns  as  perfectly  as  on  the  lower 
and  more  visible  parts !  Nature  has  from  the 
first  expanded  the  minute  blossoms  of  the  forest 
only  toward  the  heavens,  above  men's  heads  and 
unobserved  by  them.  We  see  only  the  flowers 
that  are  under  our  feet  in  the  meadows.  The 
pines  have  developed  their  delicate  blossoms  on 
the  highest  twigs  of  the  wood  every  summer 
for  ages,  as  well  over  the  heads  of  Nature's  red 
children  as  of  her  white  ones ;  yet  scarcely  a 
farmer  or  hunter  in  the  land  has  ever  seen  them. 

Above  all,  we  cannot  afford  not  to  live  in  the 
present.  He  is  blessed  over  all  mortals  who 
loses  no  moment  of  the  passing  life  in  remem 
bering  the  past.  Unless  our  philosophy  hears 
the  cock  crow  in  every  barn-yard  within  our 
horizon,  it  is  belated.  That  sound  commonly 
reminds  us  that  we  are  growing  rusty  and  an 
tique  in  our  employments  and  habits  of  thought. 
His  philosophy  comes  down  to  a  more  recent 
time  than  ours.  There  is  something  suggested 
by  it  that  is  a  newer  testament,  —  the  gospel 
according  to  this  moment.  He  has  not  fallen 
astern ;  he  has  got  up  early,  and  kept  up  early, 


212  WALKING. 

and  to  be  where  he  is  to  be  in  season,  in  the 
foremost  rank  of  time.  It  is  an  expression  of 
the  health  and  soundness  of  Nature,  a  brag  for 
all  the  world,  —  healthiness  as  of  a  spring  burst 
forth,  a  new  fountain  of  the  Muses,  to  celebrate 
this  last  instant  of  time.  Where  he  lives  no 
fugitive  slave  laws  are  passed.  Who  has  not 
betrayed  his  master  many  times  since  last  he 
heard  that  note? 

The  merit  of  this  bird's  strain  is  in  its  free 
dom  from  all  plaintiveness.  The  singer  can 
easily  move  us  to  tears  or  to  laughter,  but 
where  is  he  who  can  excite  in  us  a  pure  morn 
ing  joy?  When,  in  doleful  dumps,  breaking  the 
awful  stillness  of  our  wooden  sidewalk  on  a 
Sunday,  or,  perchance,  a  watcher  in  the  house 
of  mourning,  I  hear  a  cockerel  crow  far  or  near, 
I  think  to  myself,  "  There  is  one  of  us  well,  at 
any  rate,"  —  and  with  a  sudden  gush  return  to 
my  senses. 

We  had  a  remarkable  sunset  one  day  last 
November.  I  was  walking  in  a  meadow,  the 
source  of  a  small  brook,  when  the  sun  at  last, 
just  before  setting,  after  a  cold  gray  day,  reached 
a  clear  stratum  in  the  horizon,  and  the  softest 
brightest  morning  sunlight  fell  on  the  dry  grass 
and  on  the  stems  of  the  trees  in  the  opposite 
horizon,  and  on  the  leaves  of  the  shrub-oaks  on 


WALKING.  213 

the  hill-side,  while  our  shadows  stretched  long 
over  the  meadow  eastward,  as  if  we  were  the 
only  motes  in  its  beams.  It  was  such  a  light 
as  we  could  not  have  imagined  a  moment  be 
fore,  and  the  air  also  was  so  warm  and  serene 
that  nothing  was  wanting  to  make  a  paradise 
of  that  meadow.  When  we  reflected  that  this 
was  not  a  solitary  phenomenon,  never  to  hap 
pen  again,  but  that  it  would  happen  forever  and 
ever  an  infinite  number  of  evenings,  and  cheer 
and  reassure  the  latest  child  that  walked  there, 
it  was  more  glorious  still. 

O 

The  sun  sets  on  some  retired  meadow,  where 
no  house  is  visible,  with  all  the  glory  and  splen 
dor  that  it  lavishes  on  cities,  and  perchance,  as 
it  has  never  set  before,  —  where  there  is  but  a 
solitary  marsh-hawk  to  have  his  wings  gilded 
by  it,  or  only  a  musquash  looks  out  from  his 
cabin,  and  there  is  some  little  black-veined 
brook  in  the  midst  of  the  marsh,  just  begin 
ning  to  meander,  winding  slowly  round  a  de 
caying  stump.  We  walked  in  so  pure  and 
bright  a  light,  gilding  the  withered  grass  and 
leaves,  so  softly  and  serenely  bright,  I  thought 
I  had  never  bathed  in  such  a  golden  flood,  with 
out  a  ripple  or  a  murmur  to  it.  The  west  side 
of  every  wood  and  rising  ground  gleamed  like 
the  boundary  of  Elysium,  and  the  sun  on  our 
backs  seemed  like  a  gentle  herdsman  driving  us 
home  at  evening. 


214  WALKING. 

So  we  saunter  toward  the  Holy  Land,  till 
one  day  the  sun  shall  shine  more  brightly  than 
ever  he  has  done,  shall  perchance  shine  into  our 
minds  and  hearts,  and  light  up  our  whole  lives 
with  a  great  awakening  light,  as  warm  and  se 
rene  and  golden  as  on  a  bank-side  in  autumn. 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

[1862.] 

EUROPEANS  coming  to  America  are  surprised 
by  the  brilliancy  of  our  autumnal  foliage. 
There  is  no  account  of  such  a  phenomenon 
in  English  poetry,  because  the  trees  acquire 
but  few  bright  colors  there.  The  most  that 
Thomson  says  on  this  subject  in  his  "  Au 
tumn"  is  contained  in  the  lines, — 

"  But  see  the  fading  many-colored  woods, 
Shade  deepening  over  shade,  the  country  round 
Imbrown  ;  a  crowded  umbrage,  dusk  and  dun, 
Of  every  hue,  from  wan  declining  green  to  sooty  dark":  — 

and  in  the  line  in  which  he  speaks  of 

"  Autumn  beaming  o'er  the  yellow  woods." 

The  autumnal  change  of  our  woods  has  not 
made  a  deep  impression  on  our  own  literature 
yet.  October  has  hardly  tinged  our  poetry. 

A  great  many,  who  have  spent  their  lives  in 
cities,  and  have  never  chanced  to  come  into  the 
country  at  this  season,  have  never  seen  this,  the 
flower,  or  rather  the  ripe  fruit,  of  the  year.  I 


216  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

remember  riding  with  one  such  citizen,  who, 
though  a  fortnight  too  late  for  the  most  bril 
liant  tints,  was  taken  by  surprise,  and  would 
not  believe  that  there  had  been  any  brighter. 
He  had  never  heard  of  this  phenomenon  before. 
Not  only  many  in  our  towns  have  never  wit 
nessed  it,  but  it  is  scarcely  remembered  by  the 
majority  from  year  to  year. 

Most  appear  to  confound  changed  leaves  with 
withered  ones,  as  if  they  were  to  confound  ripe 
apples  with  rotten  ones.  I  think  that  the  change 
to  some  higher  color  in  a  leaf  is  an  evidence  that 
it  has  arrived  at  a  late  and  perfect  maturity,  an 
swering  to  the  maturity  of  fruits.  It  is  generally 
the  lowest  and  oldest  leaves  which  change  first. 
But  as  the  perfect  winged  and  usually  bright*  col 
ored  insect  is  short-lived,  so  the  leaves  ripen  but 
to  faU. 

Generally,  every  fruit,  on  ripening,  and  just 
before  it  falls,  when  it  commences  a  more  inde 
pendent  and  individual  existence,  requiring  less 
nourishment  from  any  source,  and  that  not  so 
much  from  the  earth  through  its  stem  as  from 
the  sun  and  air,  acquires  a  bright  tint.  So  do 
leaves.  The  physiologist  says  it  is  "  due  to  an 
increased  absorption  of  oxygen."  That  is  the 
scientific  account  of  the  matter,  —  only  a  reas- 
sertion  of  the  fact.  But  I  am  more  interested 
in  the  rosy  cheek  than  I  am  to  know  what  par- 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  217 

ticular  diet  the  maiden  fed  on.  The  very  forest 
and  herbage,  the  pellicle  of  the  earth,  must  ac 
quire  a  bright  color,  an  evidence  of  its  ripeness, 
—  as  if  the  globe  itself  were  a  fruit  on  its  stem, 
with  ever  a  cheek  toward  the  sun. 

Flowers  are  but  colored  leaves,  fruits  but  ripe 
ones.  The  edible  part  of  most  fruits  is,  as  the 
physiologist  says,  "the  parenchyma  or  fleshy 
tissue  of  the  leaf,"  of  which  they  are  formed. 

Our  appetites  have  commonly  confined  our 
views  of  ripeness  and  its  phenomena,  color, 
mellowness,  and  perfectness,  to  the  fruits  which 
we  eat,  and  we  are  wont  to  forget  that  an  im 
mense  harvest  which  we  do  not  eat,  hardly  use 
at  all,  is  annually  ripened  by  Nature.  At  our 
annual  Cattle  Shows  and  Horticultural  Exhibi 
tions,  we  make,  as  we  think,  a  great  show  of 
fair  fruits,  destined,  however,  to  a  rather  ignoble 
end,  fruits  not  valued  for  their  beauty  chiefly. 
But  round  about  and  within  our  towns  there  is 
annually  another  show  of  fruits,  on  an  in  finitely 
grander  scale,  fruits  which  address  our  taste  for 
oeauty  alone. 

October  is  the  month  for  painted  leaves. 
Their  rich  glow  now  flashes  round  the  world. 
^s  fruits  and  leaves  and  the  day  itself  acquire 
a.  bright  tint  just  before  they  fall,  so  the  year 
near  its  setting.  October  is  its  sunset  sky ;  No 
vember  the  later  twilight. 


218  AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

I  formerly  thought  that  it  would  be  worth  the 
while  to  get  a  specimen  leaf  from  each  chang 
ing  tree,  shrub,  and  herbaceous  plant,  when  it 
had  acquired  its  brightest  characteristic  color,  in 
its  transition  from  the  green  to  the  brown  state, 
outline  it,  and  copy  its  color  exactly,  with  paint 
in  a  book,  which  should  be  entitled,  "  October, 
or  Autumnal  Tints  "  ;  —  beginning  with  the  ear 
liest  reddening,  —  Woodbine  and  the  lake  of 
radical  leaves,  and  coming  down  through  the 
Maples,  Hickories,  and  Sumachs,  and  many 
beautifully  freckled  leaves  less  generally  known, 
to  the  latest  Oaks  and  Aspens.  What  a  me 
mento  such  a  book  would  be  !  You  would 
need  only  to  turn  over  its  leaves  to  take  a 
ramble  through  the  autumn  woods  whenever 
you  pleased.  Or  if  I  could  preserve  the  leaves 
themselves,  unfaded,  it  would  be  better  still. 
I  have  made  but  little  progress  toward  such 
a  book,  but  I  have  endeavored,  instead,  to 
describe  all  these  bright  tints  in  the  order  in 
which  they  present  themselves.  The  following 
are  some  extracts  from  my  notes. 


THE  PURPLE  GRASSES. 

BY  the  twentieth  of  August,  everywhere  in 
woods  and  swamps,  we  are  reminded  of  the 
fall,  both  by  the  richly  spotted  Sarsapaiilla 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  219 

leaves  and  Brakes,  and  the  withering  and  black 
ened  Skunk-Cabbage  and  Hellebore,  and,  by 
the  river-side,  the  already  blackening  Pontedc- 
ria. 

The  Purple  Grass  (Eragrostis  pectindcea)  is 
now  in  the  height  of  its  beauty.  I  remember 
still  when  I  first  noticed  this  grass  particularly. 
Standing  on  a  hillside  near  our  river,  I  saw, 
thirty  or  forty  rods  off,  a  stripe  of  purple  half 
a  dozen  rods  long,  under  the  edge  of  a  wood, 
where  the  ground  sloped  toward  a  meadow.  It 
was  as  high-colored  and  interesting,  though  not 
quite  so  bright,  as  the  patches  of  Rhexia,  being 
a  darker  purple,  like  a  berry's  stain  laid  on  close 
and  thick.  On  going  to  and  examining  it,  I 
found  it  to  be  a  kind  of  grass  in  bloom,  hardly 
a  foot  high,  with  but  few  green  bkides,  and  a 
fine  spreading  panicle  of  purple  flowers,  a  shal 
low,  purplish  mist  trembling  around  me.  Close 
at  hand  it  appeared  but  a  dull  purple,  and  made 
little  impression  on  the  eye  ;  it  was  even  diffi 
cult  to  detect ;  and  if  you  plucked  a  single  plant, 
you  were  surprised  to  find  how  thin  it  was,  and 
how  little  color  it  had.  But  viewed  at  a  dis 
tance  in  a  favorable  light,  it  was  of  a  fine  lively 
purple,  flower-like,  enriching  the  earth.  Such 
puny  causes  combine  to  produce  these  decided 
effects.  I  was  the  more  surprised  and  charmed 
because  grass  is  commonly  of  a  sober  and  hum 
ble  color. 


220  AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

With  its  beautiful  purple  blush  it  reminds  me, 
and  supplies  the  place,  of  the  Rhexia,  which  is 
now  leaving  off,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  in 
teresting  phenomena  of  August.  The  finest 
patches  of  it  grow  on  waste  strips  or  selvages 
of  land  at  the  base  of  dry  hills,  just  above  the 
edge  of  the  meadows,  where  the  greedy  mower 
does  not  deign  to  swing  his  scythe ;  for  this  is 
a  thin  and  poor  grass,  beneath  his  notice.  Or, 
it  may  be,  because  it  is  so  beautiful  he  does  not 
know  that  it  exists ;  for  the  same  eye  does  not 
see  this  and  Timothy.  He  carefully  gets  the 
meadow  hay  and  the  more  nutritious  grasses 
which  "grow  next  to  that,  but  he  leaves  this  fine 
purple  mist  for  the  walker's  harvest,  —  fodder 
for  his  fancy  stock.  Higher  up  the  hill,  per 
chance,  grow  also  Blackberries,  John's- Wort, 
and  neglected,  withered,  and  wiry  June-Grass. 
How  fortunate  that  it  grows  in  such  places, 
and  not  in  the  midst  of  the  rank  grasses  which 
are  annually  cut!  Nature  thus  keeps  use  and 
beauty  distinct.  I  know  many  such  localities, 
where  it  does  not  fail  to  present  itself  annually, 
and  paint  the  earth  with  its  blush.  It  grows  on 
the  gentle  slopes,  either  in  a  continuous  patch 
or  in  scattered  and  rounded  tufts  a  foot  in 
diameter,  and  it  lasts  till  it  is  killed  by  the 
first  smart  frosts. 

In  most  plants  the  corolla  or  calyx  is  the  part 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  221 

which  attains  the  highest  color,  and  is  the  most 
attractive ;  in  many  it  is  the  seed-vessel  or  fruit; 
in  others,  as  the  Red  Maple,  the  leaves;  and  in 
others  still  it  is  the  very  culm  itself  which  is  the 
principal  flower  or  blooming  part. 

The  last  is  especially  the  case  with  the 
Poke  or  Garget  (Phytolacca  decdndra).  Some 
which  stand  under  our  cliffs  quite  dazzle  rne 
with  their  purple  stems  now  and  early  in 
September.  They  are  as  interesting  to  me  as 
most  flowers,  and  one  of  the  most  important 
fruits  of  our  autumn.  Every  part  is  flower,  (or 
fruit,)  such  is  its  superfluity  of  color,  —  stem, 
branch,  peduncle,  pedicel,  petiole,  and  even  the 
ut  length  yellowish  purple-veined  leaves.  Its 
cylindrical  racemes  of  berries  of  various  hues, 
from  green  to  dark  purple,  six  or  seven  inches 
long,  are  gracefully  drooping  on  all  sides,  offer 
ing  repasts  to  the  birds  ;  and  even  the  sepals 
from  which  the  birds  have  picked  the  berries  are 
a  brilliant  lake-red,  with  crimson  flame-like  re 
flections,  equal  to  anything  of  the  kind,  —  all  on 
fire  with  ripeness.  Hence  the  lacca,  from  lac, 
lake.  There  are  at  the  same  time  flower-buds, 
flowers,  green  berries,  dark  purple  or  ripe  ones, 
and  these  flower-like  sepals,  all  on  the  same 
plant. 

We  love  to  see  any  redness  in  the  vegetation 
of  the  temperate  zone.  It  is  the  color  of  colors. 


222  AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

This  plant  speaks  to  our  blood.  It  asks  a  bright 
sun  on  it  to  make  it  show  to  best  advantage 
and  it  must  be  seen  at  this  season  of  the  year. 
On  warm  hillsides  its  stems  are  ripe  by  the 
twenty-third  of  August.  At  that  date  I  walked 
through  a  beautiful  grove  of  them,  six  or  seven 
feet  high,  on  the  side  of  one  of  our  cliffs,  where 
they  ripen  early.  Quite  to  the  ground  they 
were  a  deep  brilliant  purple  with  a  bloom,  con 
trasting  with  the  still  clear  green  leaves.  It  ap 
pears  a  rare  triumph  of  Nature  to  have  pro 
duced  and  perfected  such  a  plant,  as  if  this 
were  enough  for  a  summer.  What  a  perfect 
maturity  it  arrives  at!  It  is  the  emblem  of  a 
successful  life  concluded  by  a  death  not  prema 
ture,  which  is  an  ornament  to  Nature.  What 
if  we  were  to  mature  as  perfectly,  root  and 
branch,  glowing  in  the  midst  of  our  decay,  like 
the  Poke !  I  confess  that  it  excites  me  to  be 
hold  them.  I  cut  one  for  a  cane,  for  I  would 
fain  handle  and  lean  on  it.  I  love  to  press  the 
berries  between  my  fingers,  and  see  their  juice 
staining  my  hand.  To  walk  amid  these  up 
right,  branching  casks  of  purple  wine,  which 
retain  and  diffuse  a  sunset  glow,  tasting  each 
one  with  your  eye,  instead  of  counting  the 
pipes  on  a  London  dock,  what  a  privilege! 
For  Nature's  vintage  is  not  confined  to  the 
vine.  Our  poets  have  sung  of  wine,  the  pro- 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  223 

duct  of  a  foreign  plant  which  commonly  they 
never  saw,  as  if  our  own  plants  had  no  juice 
in  them  more  than  the  singers.  Indeed,  this 
has  been  called  by  some  the  American  Grape, 
and,  though  a  native  of  America,  its  juices  are 
used  in  some  foreign  countries  to  improve  the 
color  of  the  wine  ;  so  that  the  poetaster  may 
be  celebrating  the  virtues  of  the  Poke  without 
knowing  it.  Here  are  berries  enough  to  paint 
afresh  the  western  sky,  and  play  the  bacchanal 
with,  if  you  will.  And  what  flutes  its  ensan 
guined  stems  would  make,  to  be  used  in  such 
a  dance !  It  is  truly  a  royal  plant.  I  could 
spend  the  evening  of  the  year  musing  amid  the 
Poke-stems.  And  perchance  amid  these  groves 
might  arise  at  last  a  new  school  of  philosophy 
or  poetry.  It  lasts  all  through  September. 

At  the  same  time  with  this,  or  near  the  end 
of  August,  a  to  me  very  interesting  genus  of 
grasses,  Andropogons,  or  Beard- Grasses,  is  in 
its  prime.  Andropogon  furcatus,  Forked  Beard- 
Grass,  or  call  it  Purple-Fingered  Grass ;  Andro 
pogon  scopariuSj  Purple  Wood- Grass ;  and  An 
dropogon  (now  called  Sorghum)  nutans,  Indian- 
Grass.  The  first  is  a  very  tall  and  slender- 
culmed  grass,  three  to  seven  feet  high,  with 
four  or  five  purple  finger-like  spikes  raying  up 
ward  from  the  top.  The  second  is  also  quite 
vender,  growing  in  tufts  two  feet  high  by 


224  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

one  wide,  with  culms  often  somewhat  curving, 
which,  as  the  spikes  go  out  of  bloom,  have 
a  whitish  fuzzy  look.  These  two  are  prevail 
ing  grasses  at  this  season  on  dry  and  sandy 
fields  and  hillsides.  The  culms  of  both,  not 
to  mention  their  pretty  flowers,  reflect  a  pur 
ple  tinge,  and  help  to  declare  the  ripeness  of 
the  year.  Perhaps  I  have  the  more  sympathy 
with  them  because  they  are  despised  by  the 
farmer,  and  occupy  sterile  and  neglected  soil. 
They  are  high-colored,  like  ripe  grapes,  and 
express  a  maturity  which  the  spring  did  not 
suggest.  Only  the  August  sun  could  have 
thus  burnished  these  culms  and  leaves.  The 
farmer  has  long  since  done  his  upland  haying^ 
and  he  will  not  condescend  to  bring  his  scythe 
to  where  these  slender  wild  grasses  have  a\ 
length  flowered  thinly ;  you  often  see  spacer 
of  bare  sand  amid  them.  But  I  walk  encour- 
aged  between  the  tufts  of  Purple  Wood-Grassr, 
over  the  sandy  fields,  and  along  the  edge  ol 
the  Shrub-Oaks,  glad  to  recognize  these  sim 
ple  contemporaries.  With  thoughts  cutting  a 
broad  swathe  I  "get"  them,  with  horse-rak 
ing  thoughts  I  gather  them  into  windrows.  The 
fine-eared  poet  may  hear  the  whetting  of  my 
scythe.  These  two  were  almost  the  first  grasses 
that  I  learned  to  distinguish,  for  I  had  not 
known  by  how  many  friends  I  was  surrounded, 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  225 

—  I  had  seen  them  simply  as  grasses  standing. 
The  purple  of  their  culms  also  excites  me  like 
that  of  the  Poke- Weed  stems. 

•Think  what  refuge  there  is  for  one,  before 
August  is  over,  from  college  commencements 
and  society  that  isolates!  I  can  skulk  amid 
the  tufts  of  Purple  Wood-Grass  on  the  bor 
ders  of  the  "  Great  Fields."  Wherever  I  walk 
these  afternoons,  the  Purple  -  Fingered  Grass 
also  stands  like  a  guide-board,  and  points  my 
thoughts  to  more  poetic  paths  than  they  have 
lately  travelled. 

A  man  shall  perhaps  rush  by  and  trample 
down  plants  as  high  as  his  head,  and  cannot 
be  said  to  know  that  they  exist,  though  he 
may  have  cut  many  tons  of  them,  littered  his 
stables  with  them,  and  fed  them  to  his  cattle 
for  years.  Yet,  if  he  ever  favorably  attends 
to  them,  he  may  be  overcome  by  their  beauty. 
Each  humblest  plant,  or  weed,  as  we  call  it, 
stands  there  to  express  some  thought  or  mood 
of  ours  ;  and  yet  how  long  it  stands  in  vain ! 
I  had  walked  over  those  Great  Fields  so  many 
Augusts,  and  never  yet  distinctly  recognized 
these  purple  companions  that  I  had  there.  I 
had  brushed  against  them  and  trodden  on  them, 
forsooth  ;  and  now,  at  last,  they,  as  it  were,  rose 
up  and  blessed  me.  Beauty  and  true  wealth 
are  always  thus  cheap  and  despised.  Heaven 

15 


226  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

might  be  defined  as  the  place  which  men 
avoid.  Who  can  doubt  that  these  grasses, 
which  the  farmer  says  are  of  no  account  to 
him,  find  some  compensation  in  your  appreci 
ation  of  them  ?  I  may  say  that  I  never  saw 
them  before,  —  though,  when  I  came  to  look 
them  face  to  face,  there  did  come  down  to  me 
a  purple  gleam  from  previous  years ;  and  now, 
wherever  I  go,  I  see  hardly  anything  else.  It  is 
the  reign  and  presidency  of  the  Andropogons. 

Almost  the  very  sands  confess  the  ripening 
influence  of  the  August  sun,  and  methinks,  to 
gether  with  the  slender  grasses  waving  over 
them,  reflect  a  purple  tinge.  The  impurpled 
sands !  Such  is  the  consequence  of  all  this  sun 
shine  absorbed  into  the  pores  of  plants  and  of 
the  earth.  All  sap  or  blood  is  now  wine-col 
ored.  At  last  we  have  not  only  the  purple  sea, 
but  the  purple  land. 

The  Chestnut  Beard-Grass,  Indian-Grass,  or 
Wood-Grass,  growing  here  and  there  in  waste 
places,  but  more  rare  than  the  former,  (from  two 
to  four  or  five  feet  high,)  is  still  handsomer  and 
of  more  vivid  colors  than  its  congeners,  and 
might  well  have  caught  the  Indian's  eye.  It 
has  a  long,  narrow,  one-sided,  and  slightly  nod 
ding  panicle  of  bright  purple  and  yellow  flow 
ers,  like  a  banner  raised  above  its  reedy  leaves. 
These  bright  standards  are  now  advanced  on 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  227 

the  distant  hill-sides,  not  in  large  armies,  but 
in  scattered  troops  or  single  file,  like  the  red 
men.  They  stand  thus  fair  and  bright,  repre 
sentative  of  the  race  which  they  are  named  af 
ter,  but  for  the  most  part  unobserved  as  they. 
The  expression  of  this  grass  haunted  me  for  a 
week,  after  I  first  passed  and  noticed  it,  like 
the  glance  of  an  eye.  It  stands  like  an  Indian 
chief  taking  a  last  look  at  his  favorite  hunting- 
grounds. 

THE   RED   MAPLE. 

BY  the  twenty-fifth  of  September,  the  Red  Ma 
ples  generally  are  beginning  to  be  ripe.  Some 
large  ones  have  been  conspicuously  changing 
for  a  week,  and  some  single  trees  are  now  very 
brilliant.  I  notice  a  small  one,  half  a  mile  off 
across  a  meadow,  against  the  green  wood-side 
there,  a  far  brighter  red  than  the  blossoms  of 
any  tree  in  summer,  and  more  conspicuous.  I 
have  observed  this  tree  for  several  autumns  in 
variably  changing  earlier  than  its  fellows,  just 
as  one  tree  ripens  its  fruit  earlier  than  another. 
It  might  serve  to  mark  the  season,  perhaps.  I 
should  be  sorry,  if  it  were  cut  down.  I  know 
of  two  or  three  such  trees  in  different  parts  of 
our  town,  which  might,  perhaps,  be  propagated 
from,  as  early  ripencrs  or  September  trees,  and 
their  seed  be  advertised  in  the  market,  as  well 


228  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

as  that  of  radishes,  if  we  cared  as  much  about 
them. 

At  present  these  burning  bushes  stand  chiefly 
along  the  edge  of  the  meadows,  or  I  distinguish 
them  afar  on  the  hillsides  here  and  there.  Some 
times  you  will  see  many  small  ones  in  a  swamp 
turned  quite  crimson  when  all  other  trees  around 
are  still  perfectly  green,  and  the  former  appear 
so  much  the  brighter  for  it.  They  take  you  by 
surprise,  as  you  are  going  by  on  one  side,  across 
the  fields,  thus  early  in  the  season,  as  if  it  were 
some  gay  encampment  of  the  red  men,  or  other 
foresters,  of  whose  arrival  you  had  not  heard. 

Some  single  trees,  wholly  bright  scarlet,  seen 
against  others  of  their  kind  still  freshly  green, 
or  against  evergreens,  are  more  memorable  than 
whole  groves  will  be  by-and-by.  How  beauti 
ful,  when  a  whole  tree  is  like  one  great  scarlet 
fruit  full  of  ripe  juices,  every  leaf,  from  lowest 
limb  to  topmost  spire,  all  aglow,  especially  if 
you  look  toward  the  sun !  What  more  remark 
able  object  can  there  be  in  the  landscape  ?  Vis 
ible  for  miles,  too  fair  to  be  believed.  If  such 
a  phenomenon  occurred  but  once,  it  would  be 
handed  down  by  tradition  to  posterity,  and  get 
into  the  mythology  at  last. 

The  whole  tree  thus  ripening  in  advance  of 
its  fellows  attains  a  singular  preeminence,  and 
sometimes  maintains  it  for  a  week  or  two.  I 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  229 

am  thrilled  at  the  sight  of  it,  bearing  aloft  its 
scarlet  standard  for  the  regiment  of  green-clad 
foresters  around,  and  I  go  half  a  mile  out  of  my 
way  to  examine  it.  A  single  tree  becomes  thus 
the  crowning  beauty  of  some  meadowy  vale, 
and  the  expression  of  the  whole  surrounding 
forest  is  at  once  more  spirited  for  it. 

A  small  Red  Maple  has  grown,  perchance, 
far  away  at  the  head  of  some  retired  valley,  a 
mile  from  any  road,  unobserved.  It  has  faith 
fully  discharged  the  duties  of  a  Maple  there,  all 
winter  and  summer,  neglected  none  of  its  econ 
omies,  but  added  to  its  stature  in  the  virtue 
which  belongs  to  a  Maple,  by  a  steady  growth 
for  so  many  months,  never  having  gone  gadding 
abroad,  and  is  nearer  heaven  than  it  was  in  the 
spring.  It  has  faithfully  husbanded  its  sap,  and 
afforded  a  shelter  to  the  wandering  bird,  has 
long  since  ripened  its  seeds  and  committed  them 
to  the  winds,  and  has  the  satisfaction  of  know 
ing,  perhaps,  that  a  thousand  little  well-behaved 
Maples  are  already  settled  in  life  somewhere. 
It  deserves  well  of  Mapledom.  Its  leaves  have 
been  asking  it  from  time  to  time,  in  a  whisper, 
"  When  shall  we  redden  ?  "  And  now,  in  this 
month  of  September,  this  month  of  travelling, 
when  men  are  hastening  to  the  sea-side,  or  the 
mountains,  or  the  lakes,  this  modest  Maple,  still 
without  budging  an  inch,  travels  in  its  reputa- 


230  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

tion,  —  runs  up  its  scarlet  flag  on  that  hillside, 
which  shows  that  it  has  finished  its  summer's 
work  before  all  other  trees,  and  withdraws  from 
the  contest.  At  the  eleventh  hour  of  the  year, 
the  tree  which  no  scrutiny  could  have  detected 
here  when  it  was  most  industrious  is  thus,  by 
the  tint  of  its  maturity,  by  its  very  blushes,  re 
vealed  at  last  to  the  careless  and  distant  travel 
ler,  and  leads  his  thoughts  away  from  the  dusty 
road  into  those  brave  solitudes  which  it  inhab 
its.  It  flashes  out  conspicuous  with  all  the  vir 
tue  and  beauty  of  a  Maple,  —  Acer  rubrum. 
We  may  now  read  its  title,  or  rubric,  clear.  Its 
virtues,  not  its  sins,  are  as  scarlet. 

Notwithstanding  the  Red  Maple  is  the  most 
intense  scarlet  of  any  of  our  trees,  the  Sugar- 
Maple  has  been  the  most  celebrated,  and  Mi- 
chaux  in  his  "  Sylva "  does  not  speak  of  the 
autumnal  color  of  the  former.  About  the  sec 
ond  of  October,  these  trees,  both  large  and 
small,  are  most  brilliant,  though  many  are  still 
green.  In  "  sprout-lands  "  they  seem  to  vie  with 
one  another,  and  ever  some  particular  one  in 
the  midst  of  the  crowd  will  be  of  a  peculiarly 
pure  scarlet,  and  by  its  more  intense  color  at 
tract  our  eye  even  at  a  distance,  and  carry  off 
the  palm.  A  large  Red-Maple  swamp,  when 
at  the  height  of  its  change,  is  the  most  obvi 
ously  brilliant  of  all  tangible  things,  where  I 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  231 

dwell,  so  abundant  is  this  tree  with  us.  It 
varies  much  both  in  form  and  color.  A  great 
many  are  merely  yellow,  more  scarlet,  others 
scarlet  deepening  into  crimson,  more  red  than 
common.  Look  at  yonder  swamp  of  Maples 
mixed  with  Pines,  at  the  base  of  a  Pine-clad 
hill,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off,  so  that  you  get  the 
full  effect  of  the  bright  colors,  without  detecting 
the  imperfections  of  the  leaves,  and  see  their 
yellow,  scarlet,  and  crimson  fires,  of  all  tints, 
mingled  and  contrasted  with  the  green.  Some 
Maples  are  yet  green,  only  yellow  or  crimson- 
tipped  on  the  edges  of  their  flakes,  like  the  edges 
of  a  Hazel-Nut  burr ;  some  are  wholly  brilliant 
scarlet,  raying  out  regularly  and  finely  every 
way,  bilaterally,  like  the  veins  of  a  leaf;  others, 
of  more  irregular  form,  when  I  turn  my  head 
slightly,  emptying  out  some  of  its  earthiness 
and  concealing  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  seem  to 
rest  heavily  flake  on  flake,  like  yellow  and  scar 
let  clouds,  wreath  upon  wreath,  or  like  snow 
drifts  driving  through  the  air,  stratified  by  the 
wind.  It  adds  greatly  to  the  beauty  of  such  a 
swamp  at  this  season,  that,  even  though  there 
may  be  no  other  trees  interspersed,  it  is  not  seen 
as  a  simple  mass  of  color,  but,  different  trees 
being  of  different  colors  and  hues,  the  outline 
of  each  crescent  tree-top  is  distinct,  and  where 
one  laps  on  to  another.  Yet  a  painter  would 


232  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

hardly  venture  to   make  them   thus   distinct  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  off. 

As  I  go  across  a  meadow  directly  toward  a 
low  rising  ground  this  bright  afternoon,  I  see, 
some  fifty  rods  off  toward  the  sun,  the  top  of  a 
Maple  swamp  just  appearing  over  the  sheeny 
russet  edge  of  the  hill,  a  stripe  apparently  twen 
ty  rods  long  by  ten  feet  deep,  of  the  most  in 
tensely  brilliant  scarlet,  orange,  and  yellow, 
equal  to  any  flowers  or  fruits,  or  any  tints  ever 
painted.  As  I  advance,  lowering  the  edge  of 
the  hill  which  makes  the  firm  foreground  or 
lower  frame  of  the  picture,  the  depth  of  the 
brilliant  grove  revealed  steadily  increases,  sug 
gesting  that  the  whole  of  the  inclosed  valley  is 
filled  with  such  color.  One  wonders  that  the 
tithing-men  and  fathers  of  the  town  are  not  out 
to  see  what  the  trees  mean  by  their  high  colors 
and  exuberance  of  spirits,  fearing  that  some 
mischief  is  brewing.  I  do  not  see  what  the 
Puritans  did  at  this  season,  when  the  Maples 
blaze  out  in  scarlet.  They  certainly  could  not 
have  worshipped  in  groves  then.  Perhaps  that 
is  what  they  built  meeting-houses  and  fenced 
them  round  with  horse-sheds  for. 

THE    ELM. 

Now,  too,  the  first  of  October,  or  later,  the 
Elms  are  at  the  height  of  their  autumnal  beauty, 


ATjTUMNAL   TINTS.  233 

great  brownish-yellow  masses,  warm  from  their 
September  oven,  hanging  over  the  highway 
Their  leaves  are  perfectly  ripe.  I  wonder  if 
there  is  any  answering  ripeness  in  the  lives  of 
the  men  who  live  beneath  them.  As  I  look 
down  our  street,  which  is  lined  with  them,  they 
remind  me  both  by  their  form  and  color  of  yel 
lowing  sheaves  of  grain,  as  if  the  harvest  had 
indeed  come  to  the  village  itself,  and  we  might 
expect  to  find  some  maturity  and  flavor  in  the 
thoughts  of  the  villagers  at  last.  Under  those 
bright  rustling  yellow  piles  just  ready  to  fall  on 
the  heads  of  the  walkers,  how  can  any  crudity 
or  greenness  of  thought  or  act  prevail?  When 
I  stand  where  half  a  dozen  large  Elms  droop 
over  a  house,  it  is  as  if  I  stood  within  a  ripe 
pumpkin-rind,  and  I  feel  as  mellow  as  if  I  were 
the  pulp,  though  I  may  be  somewhat  stringy 
and  seedy  withal.  What  is  the  late  greenness 
of  the  English  Elm,  like  a  cucumber  out  of 
season,  which  does  not  know  when  to  have 
done,  compared  with  the  early  and  golden  ma 
turity  of  the  American  tree  ?  The  street  is  the 
scene  of  a  great  harvest-home.  It  would  be 
worth  the  while  to  set  out  these  trees,  if  only 
for  their  autumnal  value.  Think  of  these  great 
yellow  canopies  or  parasols  held  over  our  heads 
and  houses  by  the  mile  together,  making  the  vil 
lage  all  one  and  compact, —  an  ulmarium,  which 


234  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

is  at  the  same  time  a  nursery  of  men!  And 
then  how  gently  and  unobserved  they  drop  their 
burden  and  let  in  the  sun  when  it  is  wanted, 
their  leaves  not  heard  when  they  fall  on  our 
roofs  and  in  our  streets  ;  and  thus  the  village 
parasol  is  shut  up  and  put  away !  I  see  the 
market-man  driving  into  the  village,  and  disap 
pearing  under  its  canopy  of  Elm-tops,  with  his 
crop,  as  into  a  great  granary  or  barn-yard.  I 
am  tempted  to  go  thither  as  to  a  husking  of 
thoughts,  now  dry  and  ripe,  and  ready  to  be 
separated  from  their  integuments ;  but,  alas  !  I 
foresee  that  it  will  be  chiefly  husks  and  little 
thought,  blasted  pig-corn,  fit  only  for  cob-meal, 
—  for,  as  you  sow,  so  shall  you  reap. 

FALLEN     LEAVES. 

BY  the  sixth  of  October  the  leaves  generally 
begin  to  fall,  in  successive  showers,  after  frost 
or  rain  ;  but  the  principal  leaf-harvest,  the  acme 
of  the  Fall)  is  commonly  about  the  sixteenth. 
Some  morning  at  that  date  there  is  perhaps  a 
harder  frost  than  we  have  seen,  and  ice  formed 
under  the  pump,  and  now,  when  the  morning 
wind  rises,  the  leaves  come  down  in  denser 
showers  than  ever.  They  suddenly  form  thick 
beds  or  carpets  on  the  ground,  in  this  gentle  air, 
or  even  without  wind,  just  the  size  and  form  of 
the  tree  above.  Some  trees,  as  small  Hickories, 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  235 

appear  to  have  dropped  their  leaves  instantane 
ously,  as  a  soldier  grounds  arms  at  a  signal ;  and 
those  of  the  Hickory,  being  bright  yellow  still, 
though  withered,  reflect  a  blaze  of  light  from  the 
ground  where  they  lie.  Down  they  have  come 
on  all  sides,  at  the  first  earnest  touch  of  au 
tumn's  wand,  making  a  sound  like  rain. 

Or  else  it  is  after  moist  and  rainy  weather 
that  we  notice  how  great  a  fall  of  leaves  there 
has  been  in  the  night,  though  it  may  not  yet  be 
the  touch  that  loosens  the  Rock-Maple  leaf. 
The  streets  are  thickly  strewn  with  the  trophies, 
and  fallen  Elm-leaves  make  a  dark  brown  pave 
ment  under  our  feet.  After  some  remarkably 
warm  Indian-summer  day  or  days,  I  perceive 
that  it  is  the  unusual  heat  which,  more  than 
anything,  causes  the  leaves  to  fall,  there  having 
been,  perhaps,  no  frost  nor  rain  for  some  time. 
The  intense  heat  suddenly  ripens  and  wilts  them, 
just  as  it  softens  and  ripens  peaches  and  other 
fruits,  and  causes  them  to  drop. 

The  leaves  of  late  Red  Maples,  still  bright, 
strew  the  earth,  often  crimson-spotted  on  a  yel 
low  ground,  like  some  wild  apples,  —  though 
they  preserve  these  bright  colors  on  the  ground 
but  a  day  or  two,  especially  if  it  rains.  On 
causeways  I  go  by  trees  here  and  there  all  bare 
and  smoke-like,  having  lost  their  brilliant  cloth 
ing  ;  but  there  it  lies,  nearly  as  bright  as  ever, 


236  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

on  the  ground  on  one  side,  and  making  nearly 
as  regular  a  figure  as  lately  on  the  tree.  I  would 
rather  say  that  I  first  observe  the  trees  thus  flat 
on  the  ground  like  a  permanent  colored  shadow, 
and  they  suggest  to  look  for  the  boughs  that 
bore  them.  A  queen  might  be  proud  to  walk 
where  these  gallant  trees  have  spread  their 
bright  cloaks  in  the  mud.  I  see  wagons  roll 
over  them  as  a  shadow  or  a  reflection,  and  the 
drivers  heed  them  just  as  little  as  they  did  their 
shadows  before. 

Birds'-nests,  in  the  Huckleberry  and  other 
shrubs,  and  in  trees,  are  already  being  filled  with 
the  withered  leaves.  So  many  have  fallen  in 
the  woods,  that  a  squirrel  cannot  run  after  a 
falling  nut  without  being  heard.  Boys  are  rak 
ing  them  in  the  streets,  if  only  for  the  pleasure 
of  dealing  with  such  clean  crisp  substances. 
Some  sweep  the  paths  scrupulously  neat,  and 
then  stand  to  see  the  next  breath  strew  them 
with  new  trophies.  The  swamp-floor  is  thickly 
covered,  and  the  Lycopodium  lucidulum  looks 
suddenly  greener  amid  them.  In  dense  woods 
they  half-cover  pools  that  are  three  or  four  rods 
long.  The  other  day  I  could  hardly  find  a  well- 
known  spring,  and  even  suspected  that  it  had 
dried  up,  for  it  was  completely  concealed  by 
freshly  fallen  leaves;  and  when  I  swept  them 
aside  and  revealed  it,  it  was  like  striking  the 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  237 

earth,  with  Aaron's  rod,  for  a  new  spring.  Wet 
grounds  about  the  edges  of  swamps  look  dry 
with  them.  At  one  swamp,  where  I  was  sur 
veying,  thinking  to  step  on  a  leafy  shore  from  a 
rail,  I  got  into  the  water  more  than  a  foot  deep. 
When  I  go  to  the  river  the  day  after  the  prin 
cipal  fall  of  leaves,  the  sixteenth,  I  find  my  boat 
all  covered,  bottom  and  seats,  with  the  leaves  of 
the  Golden  Willow  under  which  it  is  moored, 
and  I  set  sail  with  a  cargo  of  them  rustling 
under  my  feet.  If  I  empty  it,  it  will  be  full 
again  to-morrow.  I  do  not  regard  them  as  lit 
ter,  to  be  swept  out,  but  accept  them  as  suit 
able  straw  or  matting  for  the  bottom  of  my  car 
riage.  When  I  turn  up  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Assabet,  which  is  wooded,  large  fleets  of  leaves 
are  floating  on  its  surface,  as  it  were  getting  out 
to  sea,  with  room  to  tack ;  but  next  the  shore,  a 
little  farther  up,  they  are  thicker  than  foam,  quite 
concealing  the  water  for  a  rod  in  width,  under 
and  amid  the  Alders,  Button-Bushes,  and  Ma 
ples,  still  perfectly  light  and  dry,  with  fibre  un- 
relaxed  ;  and  at  a  rocky  bend  where  they  are 
met  and  stopped  by  the  morning  wind,  they 
sometimes  form  a  broad  and  dense  crescent  quite 
across  the  river.  When  I  turn  my  prow  that 
way,  and  the  wave  which  it  makes  strikes  them, 
list  what  a  pleasant  rustling  from  these  dry  sub 
stances  grating  on  one  another !  Often  it  is 


238  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

their  undulation  only  which  reveals  the  water 
beneath  them.  Also  every  motion  of  the  wood- 
turtle  on  the  shore  is  betrayed  by  their  rustling 
there.  Or  even  in  mid-channel,  when  the  wind 
rises,  I  hear  them  blown  with  a  rustling  sound. 
Higher  up  they  are  slowly  moving  round  and 
round  in  some  great  eddy  which  the  river  makes, 
as  that  at  the  "  Leaning  Hemlocks,"  where  the 
water  is  deep,  and  the  current  is  wearing  into 
the  bank. 

Perchance,  in  the  afternoon  of  such  a  day, 
when  the  water  is  perfectly  calm  and  full  of  re 
flections,  I  paddle  gently  down  the  main  stream, 
and,  turning  up  the  Assabet,  reach  a  quiet  cove, 
where  I  unexpectedly  find  myself  surrounded  by 
myriads  of  leaves,  like  fellow-voyagers,  which 
seem  to  have  the  same  purpose,  or  want  of  pur 
pose,  with  myself.  See  this  great  fleet  of  scat 
tered  leaf-boats  which  we  paddle  amid,  in  this 
smooth  river-bay,  each  one  curled  up  on  every 
side  by  the  sun's  skill,  each  nerve  a  stiff  spruce- 
knee,  —  like  boats  of  hide,  and  of  all  patterns, 
Charon's  boat  probably  among  the  rest,  and 
some  with  lofty  prows  and  poops,  like  the  stately 
vessels  of  the  ancients,  scarcely  moving  in  the 
sluggish  current,  —  like  the  great  fleets,  the 
dense  Chinese  cities  of  boats,  with  which  you 
mingle  on  entering  some  great  mart,  some  New 
York  or  Canton,  which  we  are  all  steadily  pp- 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  239 

preaching  together.  How  gently  each  has  been 
deposited  on  the  water  !  No  violence  has  been 
used  towards  them  yet,  though,  perchance,  pal 
pitating  hearts  were  present  at  the  launching. 
And  painted  ducks,  too,  the  splendid  wood-duck 
among  the  rest,  often  come  to  sail  and  float 
amid  the  painted  leaves,  —  barks  of  a  nobler 
model  still! 

What  wholesome  herb-drinks  are  to  be  had 
in  the  swamps  now  !  What  strong  medicinal, 
but  rich,  scents  from  the  decaying  leaves !  The 
rain  falling  on  the  freshly  dried  herbs  and  leaves, 
and  filling  the  pools  and  ditches  into  which  they 
have  dropped  thus  clean  and  rigid,  will  soon  con 
vert  them  into  tea,  —  green,  black,  brown,  and 
yellow  teas,  of  all  degrees  of  strength,  enough 
to  set  all  Nature  a  gossiping.  Whether  we 
drink  them  or  not,  as  yet,  before  their  strength 
is  drawn,  these  leaves,  dried  on  great  Nature's 
coppers,  are  of  such  various  pure  and  delicate 
tints  as  might  make  the  fame  of  Oriental  teas. 

How  they  are  mixed  up,  of  all  species,  Oak 
and  Maple  and  Chestnut  and  Birch  !  But  Na 
ture  is  not  cluttered  with  them  ;  she  is  a  perfect 
husbandman ;  she  stores  them  all.  Consider 
what  a  vast  crop  is  thus  annually  shed  on  the 
earth !  This,  more  than  any  mere  grain  or  seed, 
is  the  great  harvest  of  the  year.  The  trees  are 
now  repaying  the  earth  with  interest  what  they 


240  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

have  taken  from  it.  They  are  discounting.  They 
are  about  to  add  a  leaf's  thickness  to  the  depth 
of  the  soil.  This  is  the  beautiful  way  in  which 
Nature  gets  her  muck,  while  I  chaffer  with  this 
man  and  that,  who  talks  to  me  about  sulphur 
and  the  cost  of  carting.  We  are  all  the  richer 
for  their  decay.  I  am  more  interested  in  this 
crop  than  in  the  English  grass  alone  or  in  the 
corn.  It  prepares  the  virgin  mould  for  future 
cornfields  and  forests,  on  which  the  earth  fat 
tens.  It  keeps  our  homestead  in  good  heart. 

For  beautiful  variety  no  crop  can  be  com 
pared  with  this.  Here  is  not  merely  the  plain 
yellow  of  the  grains,  but  nearly  all  the  colors 
that  we  know,  the  brightest  blue  not  excepted : 
the  early  blushing  Maple,  the  Poison-Sumach 
blazing  its  sins  as  scarlet,  the  mulberry  Ash,  the 
rich  chrome-yellow  of  the  Poplars,  the  brilliant 
red  Huckleberry,  with  which  the  hills'  backs  are 
painted,  like  those  of  sheep.  The  frost  touches 
them,  and,  with  the  slightest  breath  of  returning 
day  or  jarring  of  earth's  axle,  see  in  what  show 
ers  they  come  floating  down !  The  ground  is 
all  party-colored  with  them.  But  they  still  live 
in  the  soil,  whose  fertility  and  bulk  they  in 
crease,  and  in  the  forests  that  spring  from  it. 
They  stoop  to  rise,  to  mount  higher  in  coming 
years,  by  subtle  chemistry,  climbing  by  the  sap 
in  the  trees,  and  the  sapling's  first  fruits  thus 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  241 

shed,  transmuted  at  last,  may  adorn  its  crown, 
when,  in  after-years,  it  has  become  the  monarch 
of  the  forest. 

It  is  pleasant  to  walk  over  the  beds  of  these 
fresh,  crisp,  and  rustling  leaves.  How  beauti 
fully  they  go  to  their  graves  !  how  gently  lay 
themselves  down  and  turn  to  mould!  —  painted 
of  a  thousand  hues,  and  fit  to  make  the  beds  of 
us  living.  So  they  troop  to  their  last  resting- 
place,  light  and  frisky.  They  put  on  no  weeds, 
but  merrily  they  go  scampering  over  the  earth, 
selecting  the  spot,  choosing  a  lot,  ordering  no 
iron  fence,  whispering  all  through  the  woods 
about  it,  —  some  choosing  the  spot  where  the 
bodies  of  men  are  mouldering  beneath,  and 
meeting  them  half-way.  How  many  flutter- 
ings  before  they  rest  quietly  in  their  graves ! 
They  that  soared  so  loftily,  how  contentedly 
they  return  to  dust  again,  and  are  laid  low,  re 
signed  to  lie  and  decay  at  the  foot  of  the  tree, 
and  afford  nourishment  to  new  generations  of 
their  kind,  as  well  as  to  flutter  on  high !  They 
teach  us  how  to  die.  One  wonders  if  the  time 
will  ever  come  when  men,  with  their  boasted 
faith  in  immortality,  will  lie  down  as  gracefully 
and  as  ripe,  —  with  such  an  Indian -summer 
serenity  will  shed  their  bodies,  as  they  do  their 
hair  and  nails. 

When   the  leaves  fall,  the  whole  earth   is   a 

16 


242  AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

cemetery  pleasant  to  walk  in  I  love  to  wan 
der  and  muse  over  them  in  their  graves.  Here 
are  no  lying  nor  vain  epitaphs.  What  though 
you  own  no  lot  at  Mount  Auburn  ?  Your  lot 
is  surely  cast  somewhere  in  this  vast  cemetery, 
which  has  been  consecrated  from  of  old.  You 
need  attend  no  auction  to  secure  a  place.  There 
is  room  enough  here.  The  Loose-strife  shall 
bloom  and  the  Huckleberry-bird  sing  over  your 
bones.  The  woodman  and  hunter  shall  be  your 
sextons,  and  the  children  shall  tread  upon  the 
borders  as  much  as  they  will.  Let  us  walk  in 
the  cemetery  of  the  leaves,  —  this  is  your  true 
Greenwood  Cemetery. 


THE   SUGAR-MAPLE. 

BUT  think  not  that  the  splendor  of  the  year 
is  over ;  for  as  one  leaf  does  not  make  a  sum 
mer,  neither  does  one  falling  leaf  make  an  au 
tumn.  The  smallest  Sugar-  Maples  in  our 
streets  make  a  great  show  as  early  as  the  fifth 
of  October,  more  than  any  other  trees  there. 
As  I  look  up  the  Main  Street,  they  appear  like 
painted  screens  standing  before  the  houses ;  yet 
many  are  green.  But  now,  or  generally  by  the 
seventeenth  of  October,  when  almost  all  Red 
Maples,  and  some  White  Maples,  are  bare,  the 
large  Sugar- Maples  also  are  in  their  glory,  glow- 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  243 

ing  with  yellow  and  red,  and  show  unexpectedly 
bright  and  delicate  tints.  They  are  remarkable 
for  the  contrast  they  often  afford  of  deep  blush 
ing  red  on  one  half  and  green  on  the  other. 
They  become  at  length  dense  masses  of  rich 
yellow  with  a  deep  scarlet  blush,  or  more  than 
blush,  on  the  exposed  surfaces.  They  are  the 
brightest  trees  now  in  the  street. 

The  large  ones  on  our  Common  are  particu 
larly  beautiful.  A  delicate,  but  warmer  than 
golden  yellow  is  now  the  prevailing  color,  with 
scarlet  cheeks.  Yet,  standing  on  the  east  side 
of  the  Common  just  before  sundown,  when  the 
western  light  is  transmitted  through  them,  I 
see  that  their  yellow  even,  compared  with  the 
pale  lemon  yellow  of  an  Elm  close  by,  amounts 
to  a  scarlet,  without  noticing  the  bright  scarlet 
portions.  Generally,  they  are  great  regular  oval 
masses  of  yellow  and  scarlet.  All  the  sunny 
warmth  of  the  season,  the  Indian  -  summer, 
seems  to  be  absorbed  in  their  leaves.  The 
lowest  and  inmost  leaves  next  the  bole  are,  as 
usual,  of  the  most  delicate  yellow  and  green, 
like  the  complexion  of  young  men  brought  up 
in  the  house.  There  is  an  auction  on  the  Com 
mon  to-day,  but  its  red  flag  is  hard  to  be  dis 
cerned  amid  this  blaze  of  color. 

Little  did  the  fathers  of  the  town  anticipate 
this  brilliant  success,  when  they  caused  to  be  im< 


244  AUTUMNAL   TINTS. 

ported  from  farther  in  the  country  some  straight 
poles  with  their  tops  cut  off,  which  they  called 
Sugar- Ma  pies ;  and,  as  I  remember,  after  they 
were  set  out,  a  neighboring  merchant's  clerk,  by 
way  of  jest,  planted  beans  about  them.  Those 
which  were  then  jestingly  called  bean-poles  are 
to-day  far  the  most  beautiful  objects  notice 
able  in  our  streets.  They  are  worth  all  and 
more  than  they  have  cost, — though  one  of  the 
selectmen,  while  setting  them  out,  took  the  cold 
which  occasioned  his  death,  —  if  only  because 
they  have  filled  the  open  eyes  of  children  with 
their  rich  color  unstintedly  so  many  Octobers. 
We  will  not  ask  them  to  yield  us  sugar  in  the 
spring,  while  they  afford  us  so  fair  a  prospect  in 
the  autumn.  Wealth  in-doors  may  be  the  in 
heritance  of  few,  but  it  is  equally  distributed 
on  the  Common.  All  children  alike  can  revel 
in  this  golden  harvest. 

Surely  trees  should  be  set  in  our  streets  with 
a  view  to  their  October  splendor ;  though  I 
doubt  whether  this  is  ever  considered  by  the 
"  Tiee  Society."  Do  you  not  think  it  will  make 
some  odds  to  these  children  that  they  wTere 
brought  up  under  the  Maples  ?  Hundreds  of 
eyes  are  steadily  drinking  in  this  color,  and  by 
these  teachers  even  the  truants  are  caught  and 
educated  the  moment  they  step  abroad.  Indeed, 
neither  the  truant  nor  the  studious  is  at  present 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  245 

taught  color  in  the  schools.  These  are  instead 
of  the  bright  colors  in  apothecaries'  shops  and 
city  windows.  It  is  a  pity  that  we  have  no 
more  Red  Maples,  and  some  Hickories,  in  our 
streets  as  well.  Our  paint-box  is  very  imper 
fectly  filled.  Instead  of,  or  beside,  supplying 
such  paint-boxes  as  we  do,  we  might  supply 
these  natural  colors  to  the  young.  Where  else 
will  they  study  color  under  greater  advantages? 
What  School  of  Design  can  vie  with  this  ? 
Think  how  much  the  eyes  of  painters  of  all 
kinds,  and  of  manufacturers  of  cloth  and  paper, 
and  paper-stainers,  and  countless  others,  are  to 
be  educated  by  these  autumnal  colors.  The  sta 
tioner's  envelopes  may  be  of  very  various  tints, 
yet,  not  so  various  as  those  of  the  leaves  of  a 
single  tree.  If  you  want  a  different  shade  or 
tint  of  a  particular  color,  you  have  only  to  look 
farther  within  or  without  the  tree  or  the  wood. 
These  leaves  are  not  many  dipped  in  one  dye, 
as  at  the  dye-house,  but  they  are  dyed  in  light 
of  infinitely  various  degrees  of  strength,  and  left 
to  set  and  dry  there. 

Shall  the  names  of  so  many  of  our  colors 
continue  to  be  derived  from  those  of  obscure 
foreign  localities,  as  Naples  yellow,  Prussian 
blue,  raw  Sienna,  burnt  Umber,  Gamboge  ?  — 
(surely  the  Tyrian  purple  must  have  faded  by 
this  time),  —  or  from  comparatively  trivial  arti- 


246  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

cles  of  commerce,  —  chocolate,  lemon,  coffee, 
cinnamon,  claret  ?  —  (shall  we  compare  our 
Hickory  to  a  lemon,  or  a  lemon  to  a  Hick 
ory  ?)  —  or  from  ores  and  oxides  which  few 
ever  see  ?  Shall  we  so  often,  when  describing 
to  our  neighbors  the  color  of  something  we  have 
seen,  refer  them,  not  to  some  natural  object  in 
our  neighborhood,  but  perchance  to  a  bit  of 
earth  fetched  from  the  other  side  of  the  planet, 
which  possibly  they  may  find  at  the  apothe 
cary's,  but  which  probably  neither  they  nor  we 
ever  saw  ?  Have  we  not  an  earth  under  our 
feet,  —  ay,  and  a  sky  over  our  heads  ?  Or  is  the 
last  all  ultramarine  ?  What  do  we  know  of 
sapphire,  amethyst,  emerald,  ruby,  amber,  and 
the  like,  —  most  of  us  who  take  these  names  in 
vain  ?  Leave  these  precious  words  to  cabinet- 
keepers,  virtuosos,  and  maids-of-honor,  —  to  the 
Nabobs,  Begums,  and  Chobdars  of  Hindostan, 
or  wherever  else.  I  do  not  see  why,  since  Amer 
ica  and  her  autumn  woods  have  been  discovered, 
our  leaves  should  not  compete  with  the  precious 
stones  in  giving  names  to  colors ;  and,  indeed,  I 
believe  that  in  course  of  time  the  names  of  some 
of  our  trees  and  shrubs,  as  well  as  flowers,  will 
get  into  our  popular  chromatic  nomenclature. 
But  of  much  more  importance  than  a  knowl 
edge  of  the  names  and  distinctions  of  color  is 
the  joy  and  exhilaration  which  these  colored 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  247 

leaves  excite.  Already  these  brilliant  trees 
throughout  the  street,  without  any  more  variety, 
are  at  least  equal  to  an  annual  festival  and  holi 
day,  or  a  week  of  such.  These  are  cheap  and 
innocent  gala-days,  celebrated  by  one  and  all 
without  the  aid  of  committees  or  marshals,  such 
a  show  as  may  safely  be  licensed,  not  attracting 
gamblers  or  rum-sellers,  not  requiring  any  special 
police  to  keep  the  peace.  And  poor  indeed  must 
be  that  New-England  village's  October  which 
has  not  the  Maple  in  its  streets.  This  October 
festival  costs  no  powder,  nor  ringing  of  bells, 
but  every  tree  is  a  living  liberty-pole  on  which  a 
thousand  bright  flags  are  waving. 

No  wonder  that  we  must  have  our  annual 
Cattle-Show,  and  Fall  Training,  and  perhaps 
Cornwallis,  our  September  Courts,  and  the 
like.  Nature  herself  holds  her  annual  fair  in 
October,  not  only  in  the  streets,  but  in  every 
hollow  and  on  every  hill-side.  When  lately  we 
looked  into  that  Red-Maple  swamp  all  ablaze, 
where  the  trees  were  clothed  in  their  vestures 
of  most  dazzling  tints,  did  it  not  suggest  a 
thousand  gypsies  beneath,  —  a  race  capable 
of  wild  delight,  —  or  even  the  fabled  fawns, 
satyrs,  and  wood-nymphs  come  back  to  earth  ? 
Or  was  it  only  a  congregation  of  wearied  wood- 
choppers,  or  of  proprietors  come  to  inspect  their 
lots,  that  we  thought  of  ?  Or,  earlier  still,  when 


248  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

we  paddled  on  the  river  through  that  fine-grained 
September  air,  did  there  not  appear  to  be  some 
thing  new  going  on  under  the  sparkling  surface 
of  the  stream,  a  shaking  of  props,  at  least,  so 
that  we  made  haste  in  order  to  be  up  in  time  ? 
Did  not  the  rows  of  yellowing  Willows  and 
Button-Bushes  on  each  side  seem  like  rows 
of  booths,  under  which,  perhaps,  some  fluvia- 
tile  egg-pop  equally  yellow  was  effervescing? 
Did  not  all  these  suggest  that  man's  spirits 
should  rise  as  high  as  Nature's, —  should  hang 
out  their  flag,  and  the  routine  of  his  life  be  in 
terrupted  by  an  analogous  expression  of  joy  and 
hilarity  ? 

No  annual  training  or  muster  of  soldiery,  no 
celebration  with  its  scarfs  and  banners,  could 
import  into  the  town  a  hundredth  part  of  the 
annual  splendor  of  our  October.  We  have  only 
to  set  the  trees,  or  let  them  stand,  and  Nature 
will  find  the  colored  drapery,  —  flags  of  all  her 
nations,  some  of  whose  private  signals  hardly 
the  botanist  can  read,  —  while  we  walk  under 
the  triumphal  arches  of  the  Elms.  Leave  it  to 
Nature  to  appoint  the  days,  whether  the  same 
as  in  neighboring  States  or  not,  and  let  the 
clergy  read  her  proclamations,  if  they  can  un 
derstand  them.  Behold  what  a  brilliant  drap 
ery  is  her  Woodbine  flag  !  What  public-spir 
ited  merchant,  think  you,  has  contributed  this 


AUTUMNAL  TINTS.  249 

part  of  the  show  ?  There  is  no  handsomer 
shingling  and  paint  than  this  vine,  at  present 
covering  a  whole  side  of  some  houses.  I  do 

O 

not  believe  that  the  Ivy  never  sere  is  compara 
ble  to  it.  No  wonder  it  has  been  extensively 
introduced  into  London.  Let  us  have  a  good 
many  Maples  and  Hickories  and  Scarlet  Oaks, 
then,  I  say.  Blaze  away  !  Shall  that  dirty 
roll  of  bunting  in  the  gun-house  be  all  the  colors 
a  village  can  display  ?  A  village  is  not  com 
plete,  unless  it  have  these  trees  to  mark  the 
season  in  it.  They  are  important,  like  the 
town-clock.  A  village  that  has  them  not  will 
not  be  found  to  work  well.  It  has  a  screw 
loose,  an  essential  part  is  wanting.  Let  us 
have  Willows  for  spring,  Elms  for  summer, 
Maples  and  Walnuts  and  Tupeloes  for  au 
tumn,  Evergreens  for  winter,  and  Oaks  for 
all  seasons.  What  is  a  gallery  in  a  house  to 
a  gallery  in  the  streets,  which  every  market- 
man  rides  through,  whether  he  will  or  not? 
Of  course,  there  is  not  a  picture-gallery  in  the 
country  which  would  be  worth  so  much  to  us 
as  is  the  western  view  at  sunset  under  the 
Elms  of  our  main  street.  They  are  the  frame 
to  a  picture  which  is  daily  painted  behind 
them.  An  avenue  of  Elms  as  large  as  our 
largest  and  three  miles  long  would  seem  to 
lead  to  some  admirable  place,  though  only 
C were  at  the  end  of  it. 


250  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

A  village  needs  these  innocent  stimulants  v/i 
bright  and  cheering  prospects  to  keep  off  melan 
choly  and  superstition.  Show  me  two  villages, 
one  embowered  in  trees  and  blazing  with  all  the 
glories  of  October,  the  other  a  merely  trivial  and 
treeless  waste,  or  with  only  a  single  tree  or  two 
for  suicides,  and  I  shall  be  sure  that  in  the  lat 
ter  will  be  found  the  most  starved  and  bigoted 
religionists  and  the  most  desperate  drinker  . 
Every  washtub  and  milkcan  and  gravestone 
will  be  exposed.  The  inhabitants  will  disap 
pear  abruptly  behind  their  barns  and  houses, 
like  desert  Arabs  amid  their  rocks,  and  I  shall 
look  to  see  spears  in  their  hands.  They  will  be 
ready  to  accept  the  most  barren  and  forlorn 
doctrine,  —  as  that  the  world  is  speedily  com 
ing  to  an  end,  or  has  already  got  to  it,  or  that 
they  themselves  are  turned  wrong  side  outward. 
They  will  perchance  crack  their  dry  joints  at 
one  another  and  call  it  a  spiritual  communi 
cation. 

But  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  Maples. 
What  if  we  were  to  take  half  as  much  pains 
in  protecting  them  as  we  do  in  setting  them 
out,  —  not  stupidly  tie  our  horses  to  our  dahlia- 
stems  ? 

What  meant  the  fathers  by  establishing  this 
perfectly  living  institution  before  the  church,  — 
this  institution  which  needs  no  repairing  nor 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  251 

repainting,  which  is    continually  enlarged    and 
repaired  by  its  growth  ?     Surely  they 

"  Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity  ; 
Themselves  from  God  they  could  not  free : 
They  planted  better  than  they  knew  ;  — 
The  conscious  trees  to  beauty  grew." 

Verily  these  Maples  are  cheap  preachers,  per- 
inanently  settled,  which  preach  their  half-cen 
tury,  and  century,  ay,  and  century-and-a-half 
sermons,  with  constantly  increasing  unction  and 
influence,  ministering  to  many  generations  of 
men ;  and  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  supply  them 
with  suitable  colleagues  as  they  grow  infirm. 


THE  SCARLET  OAK. 

BELONGING  to  a  genus  which  is  remarkable 
for  the  beautiful  form  of  its  leaves,  I  suspect 
that  some  Scarlet- Oak  leaves  surpass  those  of 
all  other  Oaks  in  the  rich  and  wild  beauty  of 
their  outlines.  I  judge  from  an  acquaintance 
with  twelve  species,  and  from  drawings  which 
I  have  seen  of  many  others. 

Stand  under  this  tree  and  see  how  finely  its 
leaves  are  cut  against  the  sky,  —  as  it  were, 
only  a  few  sharp  points  extending  from  a  mid 
rib.  They  look  like  double,  treble,  or  quadruple 
crosses  They  are  far  more  ethereal  than  the 


252  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

less  deeply  scolloped  Oak-leaves.  They  have 
so  little  leafy  terra  firma  that  they  appear  melt 
ing  away  in  the  light,  and  scarcely  obstruct  our 
view.  The  leaves  of  very  young  plants  are,  like 
those  of  full-grown  Oaks  of  other  species,  more 
entire,  simple,  and  lumpish  in  their  outlines ; 
but  these,  raised  high  on  old  trees,  have  solved 
the  leafy  problem.  Lifted  higher  and  higher, 
and  sublimated  more  and  more,  putting  off 
some  earthiness  and  cultivating  more  intimacy 
with  the  light  each  year,  they  have  at  length  the 
least  possible  amount  of  earthy  matter,  and  the 
greatest  spread  and  grasp  of  skyey  influences. 
There  they  dance,  arm  in  arm  with  the  light,  — 
tripping  it  on  fantastic  points,  fit  partners  in 
those  aerial  halls.  So  intimately  mingled  are 
they  with  it,  that,  what  with  their  slenderness 
and  their  glossy  surfaces,  you  can  hardly  tell  at 
last  what  in  the  dance  is  leaf  and  what  is  light. 
And  when  no  zephyr  stirs,  they  are  at  most  but 
a  rich  tracery  to  the  forest-windows. 

I  am  again  struck  with  their  beauty,  when, 
a  month  later,  they  thickly  strew  the  ground 
in  the  woods,  piled  one  upon  another  under 
my  feet.  They  are  then  brown  above,  but 
purple  beneath.  With  their  narrow  lobes  and 
their  bold  deep  scollops  reaching  almost  to  the 
middle,  they  suggest  that  the  material  must  be 
cheap,  or  else  there  has  been  a  lavish  expense 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  253 

in  their  creation,  as  if  so  much  had  been  cut 
out.  Or  else  they  seem  to  us  the  remnants  of 
the  stuff  out  of  which  leaves  have  been  cut 
with  a  die.  Indeed,  when  they  lie  thus  one 
upon  another,  they  remind  me  of  a  pile  of 
scrap-tin. 

Or  bring  one  home,  and  study  it  closely  at 
your  leisure,  by  the  fireside.  It  is  a  type,  not 
from  any  Oxford  font,  not  in  the  Basque  nor 
the  arrow-headed  character,  not  found  on  the 
Rosetta  Stone,  but  destined  to  be  copied  in 
sculpture  one  day,  if  they  ever  get  to  whit 
tling  stone  here.  What  a  wild  and  pleasing 
outline,  a  combination  of  graceful  curves  and 
angles !  The  eye  rests  with  equal  delight  on 
what  is  not  leaf  and  on  what  is  leaf,  —  on 
the  broad,  free,  open  sinuses,  and  on  the  long, 
sharp,  bristle-pointed  lobes.  A  simple  oval  out 
line  would  include  it  all,  if  you  connected  the 
points  of  the  leaf;  but  how  much  richer  is  it 
than  that,  with  its  half-dozen  deep  scollops,  in 
which  the  eye  and  thought  of  the  beholder  are 
embayed !  If  I  were  a  drawing-master,  I  would 
set  my  pupils  to  copying  these  leaves,  that  they 
might  learn  to  draw  firmly  and  gracefully. 

Regarded  as  water,  it  is  like  a  pond  with  half 
a  dozen  broad  rounded  promontories  extending 
nearly  to  its  middle,  half  from  each  side,  while 
its  watery  bays  extend  far  inland,  like  sharp 


254  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

friths,  at  each  of  whose  heads  several  fine 
streams  empty  in,  —  almost  a  leafy  archipel 
ago. 

But  it  oftener  suggests  land,  and,  as  Diony- 
sius  and  Pliny  compared  the  form  of  the  Morea 
to  that  of  the  leaf  of  the  Oriental  Plane-tree, 
so  this  leaf  reminds  me  of  some  fair  wild  island 
in  the  ocean,  whose  extensive  coast,  alternate 
rounded  bays  with  smooth  strands,  and  sharp- 
pointed  rocky  capes,  mark  it  as  fitted  for  the 
habitation  of  man,  and  destined  to  become  a 
centre  of  civilization  at  last.  To  the  sailor's 
eye,  it  is  a  much-indented  shore.  Is  it  not,  in 
fact,  a  shore  to  the  aerial  ocean,  on  which  the 
windy  surf  beats  ?  At  sight  of  this  leaf  we  are 
all  mariners,  —  if  not  vikings,  buccaneers,  and 
filibusters.  Both  our  love  of  repose  and  our 
spirit  of  adventure  are  addressed.  In  our  most 
casual  glance,  perchance,  we  think,  that,  if  we 
succeed  in  doubling  those  sharp  capes,  we  shall 
find  deep,  smooth,  and  secure  havens  in  the 
ample  bays.  How  different  from  the  White- 
Oak  leaf,  with  its  rounded  headlands,  on  which 
no  lighthouse  need  be  placed !  That  is  an  Eng 
land,  with  its  long  civil  history,  that  may  be 
read.  This  is  some  still  unsettled  New-found 
Island  or  Celebes.  Shall  we  go  and  be  rajahs 
there  ? 

By   the    twenty-sixth    of    October   the   large 


AUTUMNAL  TINTS.  255 

Scarlet  Oaks  are  in  their  prime,  when  other 
Oaks  are  usually  withered.  They  have  been 
kindling  their  fires  for  a  week  past,  and  now 
generally  burst  into  a  blaze.  This  alone  of 
our  indigenous  deciduous  trees  (excepting  the 
Dogwood,  of  which  I  do  not  know  half  a 
dozen,  and  they  are  but  large  bushes)  is  now 
in  its  glory.  The  two  Aspens  and  the  Sugar- 
Maple  come  nearest  to  it  in  date,  but  they 
have  lost  the  greater  part  of  their  leaves.  Of 
evergreens,  only  the  Pitch-Pine  is  still  com 
monly  bright. 

But  it  requires  a  particular  alertness,  if  not 
devotion  to  these  phenomena,  to  appreciate  the 
wide-spread,  but  late  and  unexpected  glory  of 
the  Scarlet  Oaks.  I  do  not  speak  here  of  the 
small  trees  and  shrubs,  which  are  commonly 
observed,  and  which  are  now  withered,  but 
of  the  large  trees.  Most  go  in  and  shut 
their  doors,  thinking  that  bleak  and  colorless 
November  has  already  corne,  when  some  of 
the  most  brilliant  and  memorable  colors  are 
not  yet  lit. 

This  very  perfect  and  vigorous  one,  about 
forty  feet  high,  standing  in  an  open  pasture, 
which  was  quite  glossy  green  on  the  twelfth, 
is  now,  the  twenty-sixth,  completely  changed 
to  bright  dark  scarlet,  —  every  leaf,  between 
you  and  the  sun,  as  if  it  had  been  dipped 


256  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

into  a  scarlet  dye.  The  whole  tree  is  much  like 
a  heart  in  form,  as  well  as  color.  Was  not 
this  worth  waiting  for?  Little  did  you  think, 
ten  days  ago,  that  that  cold  green  tree  would 
assume  such  color  as  this.  Its  leaves  are  still 
firmly  attached,  while  those  of  other  trees  are 
falling  around  it.  It  seems  to  say,  —  "I  am 
the  last  to  blush,  but  I  blush  deeper  than  any 
of  ye.  I  bring  up  the  rear  in  my  red  coat. 
We  Scarlet  ones,  alone  of  Oaks,  have  not 
given  up  the  fight." 

The  sap  is  now,  and  even  far  into  Novem 
ber,  frequently  flowing  fast  in  these  trees,  as  in 
Maples  in  the  spring  ;  and  apparently  their 
bright  tints,  now  that  most  other  Oaks  are 
withered,  are  connected  with  this  phenomenon. 
They  are  full  of  life.  It  has  a  pleasantly  astrin 
gent,  acorn-like  taste,  this  strong  Oak-wine,  as 
I  find  on  tapping  them  with  my  knife. 

Looking  across  this  woodland  valley,  a  quar 
ter  of  a  mile  wide,  how  rich  those  Scarlet  Oaks, 
embosomed  in  Pines,  their  bright  red  branches 
intimately  intermingled  with  them  !  They  have 
their  full  effect  there.  The  Pine-boughs  are  the 
green  calyx  to  their  red  petals.  Or,  as  we  go 
along  a  road  in  the  woods,  the  sun  striking  end 
wise  through  it,  and  lighting  up  the  red  tents 
of  the  Oaks,  which  on  each  side  are  mingled 
with  the  liquid  green  of  the  Pines,  makes  a 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  257 

very  gorgeous  scene.  Indeed,  without  the  ever 
greens  for  contrast,  the  autumnal  tints  would 
lose  much  of  their  effect. 

The  Scarlet  Oak  asks  a  clear  sky  and  the 
brightness  of  late  October  days.  These  bring 
out  its  colors.  If  the  sun  goes  into  a  cloud, 
they  become  comparatively  indistinct.  As  I  sit 
on  a  cliff  in  the  southwest  part  of  our  town,  the 
sun  is  now  getting  low,  and  the  woods  in  Lin 
coln,  south  and  east  of  me,  are  lit  up  by  its  more 
level  rays ;  and  in  the  Scarlet  Oaks,  scattered  so 
equally  over  the  forest,  there  is  brought  out  a 
more  brilliant  redness  than  I  had  believed  was 
in  them.  Every  tree  of  this  species  which  is 
visible  in  those  directions,  even  to  the  horizon, 
now  stands  out  distinctly  red.  Some  great  ones 
lift  their  red  backs  high  above  the  woods,  in  the 
next  town,  like  huge  roses  with  a  myriad  of  fine 
petals  ;  and  some  more  slender  ones,  in  a  small 
grove  of  White  Pines  on  Pine  Hill  in  the  east,  on 
the  very  verge  of  the  horizon,  alternating  with 
the  Pines  on  the  edge  of  the  grove,  and  shoul 
dering  them  with  their  red  coats,  look  like  sol 
diers  in  red  amid  hunters  in  green.  This  time  it 
is  Lincoln  green,  too.  Till  the  sun  got  low,  I  did 
not  believe  that  there  were  so  many  red  coats  in 
the  forest  army.  Theirs  is  an  intense  burning 
red,  which  would  lose  some  of  its  strength,  me- 
thinks,  with  every  step  you  might  take  toward 

17 


258  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

them ;  for  the  shade  that  lurks  amid  their  foli 
age  does  not  report  itself  at  this  distance,  and 
they  are  unanimously  red.  The  focus  of  their 
reflected  color  is  in  the  atmosphere  far  on  this 
side.  Every  such  tree  becomes  a  nucleus  of 
red,  as  it  were,  where,  with  the  declining  sun, 
that  color  grows  and  glows.  It  is  partly  bor 
rowed  fire,  gathering  strength  from  the  sun  on 
its  way  to  your  eye.  It  has  only  some  compar 
atively  dull  red  leaves  for  a  rallying-point,  or 
kindling-stuff,  to  start  it,  and  it  becomes  an 
intense  scarlet  or  red  mist,  or  fire,  which  finds 
fuel  for  itself  in  the  very  atmosphere.  So  viva 
cious  is  redness.  The  very  rails  reflect  a  rosy 
light  at  this  hour  and  season.  You  see  a  redder 
tree  than  exists. 

If  you  wish  to  count  the  Scarlet  Oaks,  do  it 
now.  In  a  clear  day  stand  thus  on  a  hill-top  in 
the  woods,  when  the  sun  is  an  hour  high,  and 
every  one  within  range  of  your  vision,  excepting 
in  the  west,  will  be  revealed.  You  might  live 
to  the  age  of  Methuselah  and  never  find  a  tithe 
of  them,  otherwise.  Yet  sometimes  even  in 
a  dark  day  I  have  thought  them  as  bright  as 
I  ever  saw  them.  Looking  westward,  their 
colors  are  lost  in  a  blaze  of  light;  but  in  other 
directions  the  whole  forest  is  a  flower-garden,  in 
which  these  late  roses  burn,  alternating  with 
green,  while  the  so-called  "  gardeners,"  walking 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  259 

here  and  there,  perchance,  beneath,  with  spade 
and  water-pot,  see  only  a  few  little  asters  amid 
withered  leaves. 

These  are  my  China-asters,  my  late  garden- 
flowers.  It  costs  me  nothing  for  a  gardener. 
The  falling  leaves,  all  over  the  forest,  are  pro 
tecting  the  roots  of  my  plants.  Only  look  at 
what  is  to  be  seen,  and  you  will  have  garden 
enough,  without  deepening  the  soil  in  your  yard. 
We  have  only  to  elevate  our  view  a  little,  to  see 
the  whole  forest  as  a  garden.  The  blossoming 
of  the  Scarlet  Oak,  —  the  forest-flower,  sur 
passing  all  in  splendor,  (at  least  since  the  Ma 
ple)  !  I  do  not  know  but  they  interest  me  more 
than  the  Maples,  they  are  so  widely  and  equally 
dispersed  throughout  the  forest ;  they  are  so 
hardy,  a  nobler  tree  on  the  whole  ;  —  our 
chief  November  flower,  abiding  the  approach 
of  winter  with  us,  imparting  warmth  to  early 
November  prospects.  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
latest  bright  color  that  is  general  should  be  this 
deep,  dark  scarlet  and  red,  the  intensest  of 
colors.  The  ripest  fruit  of  the  year ;  like  the 
cheek  of  a  hard,  glossy,  red  apple,  from  the  cold 
Isle  of  Orleans,  which  will  not  be  mellow  for 
eating  till  next  spring !  When  I  rise  to  a  hill 
top,  a  thousand  of  these  great  Oak  roses,  dis 
tributed  on  every  side,  as  far  as  the  horizon  ! 
I  admire  them  four  or  five  miles  off!  This  my 


260  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

unfailing  prospect  for  a  fortnight  past!  This 
late  forest-flower  surpasses  all  that  spring  or 
summer  could  do.  Their  colors  were  but  rare 
and  dainty  specks  comparatively,  (created  for 
the  near-sighted,  who  walk  amid  the  humblest 
herbs  and  underwoods,)  and  made  no  impres 
sion  on  a  distant  eye.  Now  it  is  an  extended 
forest  or  a  mountain-side,  through  or  along 
which  we  journey  from  day  to  day,  that  bursts 
into  bloom.  Comparatively,  our  gardening  is 
on  a  petty  scale,  —  the  gardener  still  nursing 
a  few  asters  amid  dead  weeds,  ignorant  of  the 
gigantic  asters  and  roses,  which,  as  it  were, 
overshadow  him,  and  ask  for  none  of  his  care. 
It  is  like  a  little  red  paint  ground  on  a  saucer, 
and  held  up  against  the  sunset  sky.  Why  not 
take  more  elevated  and  broader  views,  walk 
in  the  great  garden,  not  skulk  in  a  little  "  de 
bauched  "  nook  of  it  ?  consider  the  beauty  of 
the  forest,  and  not  merely  of  a  few  impounded 
herbs  ? 

Let  your  walks  now  be  a  little  more  adven 
turous  ;  ascend  the  hills.  If,  about  the  last  of 
October,  you  ascend  any  hill  in  the  outskirts 
of  our  town,  and  probably  of  yours,  and  look 

over  the  forest,  you  may  see well,  what  I 

have  endeavored  to  describe.  All  this  you 
surely  will  see,  and  much  more,  if  you  are  pre 
pared  to  see  it,  —  if  you  look  for  it.  Otherwise, 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS-  261 

regular  and  universal  as  this  phenomenon  is, 
whether  you  stand  on  the  hill-top  or  in  the  hol 
low,  you  will  think  for  threescore  years  and  ten 
that  all  the  wood  is,  at  this  season,  sere  and 
brown.  Objects  are  concealed  from  our  view, 
not  so  much  because  they  are  out  of  the  course 
of  our  visual  ray  as  because  we  do  not  bring 
our  minds  and  eyes  to  bear  on  them  ;  for  there 
is  no  power  to  see  in  the  eye  itself,  any  more 
than  in  any  other  jelly.  We  do  not  realize  how 
far  and  widely,  or  how  near  and  narrowly,  we 
are  to  look.  The  greater  part  of  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  are  for  this  reason  concealed  from  us 
all  our  lives.  The  gardener  sees  only  the  gar 
dener's  garden.  Here,  too,  as  in  political  econ 
omy,  the  supply  answers  to  the  demand.  Nature 
does  not  cast  pearls  before  swine.  There  is  just 
as  much  beauty  visible  to  us  in  the  landscape 
as  we  are  prepared  to  appreciate,  —  not  a  grain 
more.  The  actual  objects  which  one  man  will 
see  from  a  particular  hiil-top  are  just  as  different 
from  those  which  another  will  see  as  the  behold 
ers  are  different.  The  Scarlet  Oak  must,  in  a 
sense,  be  in  your  eye  when  you  go  forth.  We 
cannot  see  anything  until  we  are  possessed  with 
the  idea  of  it,  take  it  into  our  heads,  —  and  then 
we  can  hardly  see  anything  else.  In  my  botan 
ical  rambles,  I  find,  that,  first,  the  idea,  or  image, 
of  a  plant  occupies  my  thoughts,  though  it  may 


262  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

seem  very  foreign  to  this  locality,  —  no  nearer 
than  Hudson's  Bay,  —  and  for  some  weeks  or 
months  I  go  thinking  of  it,  and  expecting  it, 
unconsciously,  and  at  length  I  surely  see  it, 
This  is  the  history  of  my  finding  a  score  or 
more  of  rare  plants,  which  I  could  name.  A 
man  sees  only  what  concerns  him.  A  botanist 
absorbed  in  the  study  of  grasses  does  not  distin 
guish  the  grandest  Pasture  Oaks.  He,  as  it 
were,  tramples  down  Oaks  unwittingly  in  his 
walk,  or  at  most  sees  only  their  shadows.  I 
have  found  that  it  required  a  different  inten 
tion  of  the  eye,  in  the  same  locality,  to  see 
different  plants,  even  when  they  were  closely 
allied,  as  Juncaceos  and  Graminece :  when  I  was 
looking  for  the  former,  I  did  not  see  the  latter  in 
the  midst  of  them.  How  much  more,  then,  it 
requires  different  intentions  of  the  eye  and  of 
the  mind  to  attend  to  different  departments  of 
knowledge !  How  differently  the  poet  and  the 
naturalist  look  at  objects  ! 

Take  a  New-England  selectman,  and  set  him 
on  the  highest  of  our  hills,  and  tell  him  to  look, 
—  sharpening  his  sight  to  the  utmost,  and  put 
ting  on  the  glasses  that  suit  him  best,  (ay,  using 
a  spy-glass,  if  he  likes,)  —  and  make  a  full  report. 
What,  probably,  will  he  spy  ?  —  what  will  he 
select  to  look  at  ?  Of  course,  he  will  see  a 
Brocken  spectre  of  himself.  He  will  see  sev- 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  263 

eral  meeting-houses,  at  least,  and,  perhaps,  that 
somebody  ought  to  be  assessed  higher  than  he 
is,  since  he  has  so  handsome  a  wood-lot.  Now 
take  Julius  Caesar,  or  Immanuel  Swedenborg, 
or  a  Fegee-Islander,  and  set  him  up  there. 
Or  suppose  all  together,  and  let  them  com 
pare  notes  afterward.  Will  it  appear  that 
they  have  enjoyed  the  same  prospect  ?  What 
they  will  see  will  be  as  different  as  Rome 
was  from  Heaven  or  Hell,  or  the  last  from 
the  Fegee  Islands.  For  aught  we  know,  as 
strange  a  man  as  any  of  these  is  always  at 
our  elbow. 

Why,  it  takes  a  sharp-shooter  to  bring  down 
even  such  trivial  game  as  snipes  and  wood 
cocks  ;  he  must  take  very  particular  aim,  and 
know  what  he  is  aiming  at.  He  would  stand 
a  very  small  chance,  if  he  fired  at  random  into 
the  sky,  being  told  that  snipes  were  flying  there. 
And  so  is  it  with  him  that  shoots  at  beauty  ; 
though  he  wait  till  the  sky  falls,  he  will  not  bag 
any,  if  he  does  not  already  know  its  seasons 
and  haunts,  and  the  color  of  its  wing,  —  if  he 
has  not  dreamed  of  it,  so  that  he  can  anticipate 
it ;  then,  indeed,  he  flushes  it  at  every  step, 
shoots  double  and  on  the  wing,  with  both  bar 
rels,  even  in  cornfields.  The  sportsman  trains 
himself,  dresses  and  watches  unweariedly,  and 
loads  and  primes  for  his  particular  game.  He 


264  AUTUMNAL  TINTS. 

prays  for  it,  and  offers  sacrifices,  and  so  he  gets 
it.  After  due  and  long  preparation,  schooling  his 
eye  and  hand,  dreaming  awake  and  asleep,  with 
gun  and  paddle  and  boat  he  goes  out  after 
meadow-hens,  which  most  of  his  townsmen 
never  saw  nor  dreamed  of,  and  paddles  for 
miles  against  a  head-wind,  and  wades  in  water 
up  to  his  knees,  being  out  all  day  without  his 
dinner,  and  therefore  he  gets  them.  He  had 
them  half-way  into  his  bag  when  he  started, 
and  has  only  to  shove  them  down.  The  true 
sportsman  can  shoot  you  almost  any  of  his 
game  from  his  windows  :  what  else  has  he 
windows  or  eyes  for?  It  comes  and  perches 
at  last  on  the  barrel  of  his  gun ;  but  the  rest 
of  the  world  never  see  it  with  the  feathers  on. 
The  geese  fly  exactly  under  his  zenith,  and 
honk  when  they  get  there,  and  he  will  keep 
himself  supplied  by  firing  up  his  chimney  ; 
twenty  musquash  have  the  refusal  of  each  one 
of  his  traps  before  it  is  empty.  If  he  lives,  and 
his  game-spirit  increases,  heaven  and  earth  shall 
fail  him  sooner  than  game ;  and  when  he  dies, 
he  will  go  to  more  extensive,  and,  perchance, 
happier  hunting-grounds.  The  fisherman,  too, 
dreams  of  fish,  sees  a  bobbing  cork  in  his 
dreams,  till  he  can  almost  catch  them  in  his 
sink-spout.  I  knew  a  girl  who,  being  sent  to 
pick  huckleberries,  picked  wild  gooseberries  by 


AUTUMNAL   TINTS.  265 

the  quart,  where  no  one  else  knew  that  there 
were  any,  because  she  was  accustomed  to  pick 
them  up  country  where  she  came  from.  The 
astronomer  knows  where  to  go  star-gathering, 
and  sees  one  clearly  in  his  mind  before  any 
have  seen  it  with  a  glass.  The  hen  scratches 
and  finds  her  food  right  under  where  she  stands  ; 
but  such  is  not  the  way  with  the  hawk. 

These  bright  leaves  which  I  have  mentioned 
are  not  the  exception,  but  the  rule ;  for  I  believe 
that  all  leaves,  even  grasses  and  mosses,  acquire 
brighter  colors  just  before  their  fall.  When  you 
come  to  observe  faithfully  the  changes  of  each 
humblest  plant,  you  find  that  each  has,  sooner 
or  later,  its  peculiar  autumnal  tint;  and  if  you 
undertake  to  make  a  complete  list  of  the  bright 
tints,  it  will  be  nearly  as  long  as  a  catalogue  of 
the  plants  in  your  vicinity. 


WILD  APPLES. 

(1862.) 
THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  APPLE-TREE. 

IT  is  remarkable  how  closely  the  history  of 
the  Apple-tree  is  connected  with  that  of  man. 
The  geologist  tells  us  that  the  order  of  the 
Rosacece,  which  includes  the  Apple,  also  the 
true  Grasses,  and  the  Labialae,  or  Mints,  were 
introduced  only  a  short  time  previous  to  the 
appearance  of  man  on  the  globe. 

It  appears  that  apples  made  a  part  of  the 
food  of  that  unknown  primitive  people  whose 
traces  have  lately  been  found  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Swiss  lakes,  supposed  to  be  older  than 
the  foundation  of  Home,  so  old  that  they  had 
no  metallic  implements.  An  entire  black  and 
shrivelled  Crab- Apple  has  been  recovered  from 
their  stores. 

Tacitus  says  of  the  ancient  Germans,  that 
they  satisfied  their  hunger  with  wild  apples 
(agrestia  poma)  among  other  things. 

Niebuhr  observes  that  "  the  words  for  a  house, 


WILD   APPLES.  267 

a  field,  a  plough,  ploughing,  wine,  oil,  milk, 
sheep,  apples,  and  others  relating  to  agricul 
ture  and  the  gentler  way  of  life,  agree  in 
Latin  and  Greek,  while  the  Latin  words  for 
all  objects  pertaining  to  war  or  the  chase  are 
utterly  alien  from  the  Greek."  Thus  the  ap 
ple-tree  may  be  considered  a  symbol  of  peace 
no  less  than  the  olive. 

The  apple  was  early  so  important,  and  gener 
ally  distributed,  that  its  name  traced  to  its  root 
in  many  languages  signifies  fruit  in  general. 
M^Aov,  in  Greek,  means  an  apple,  also  the  fruit 
of  other  trees,  also  a  sheep  and  any  cattle,  and 
finally  riches  in  general. 

The  apple-tree  has  been  celebrated  by  the 
Hebrews,  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Scandinavians. 
Some  have  thought  that  the  first  human  pair 
were  tempted  by  its  fruit.  Goddesses  are  fabled 
to  have  contended  for  it,  dragons  were  set  to 
watch  it,  and  heroes  were  employed  to  pluck  it. 

The  tree  is  mentioned  in  at  least  three  places 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  its  fruit  in  two  or 
three  more.  Solomon  sings,  —  "  As  the  apple- 
tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood,  so  is  my 
beloved  among  the  sons."  And  again,  —  "  Stay 
me  with  flagons,  comfort  me  with  apples."  The 
noblest  part  of  man's  noblest  feature  is  named 
from  this  fruit,  "  the  apple  of  the  eye." 

The  apple-tree  is  also  mentioned  by  Homer 


268  WILD  APPLES. 

and  Herodotus.  Ulysses  saw  in  the  glorious 
garden  of  Alcinoiis  "  pears  and  pomegranates, 
and  apple-trees  bearing  beautiful  fruit  "  (Kal 
/M/Xcai  dyXao/capTrot) .  And  according  to  Homer, 
apples  were  among  the  fruits  which  Tantalus 
could  not  pluck,  the  wind  ever  blowing  their 
boughs  away  from  him.  Theophrastus  knew 
and  described  the  apple-tree  as  a  botanist. 

According  to  the  Prose  Edda,  "  Iduna  keeps 
in  a  box  the  apples  which  the  gods,  when  they 
feel  old  age  approaching,  have  only  to  taste  of 
to  become  young  again.  It  is  in  this  manner 
that  they  will  be  kept  in  renovated  youth  until 
Ragnarok"  (or  the  destruction  of  the  gods). 

I  learn  from  Loudon  that  "  the  ancient  Welsh 
bards  were  rewarded  for  excelling  in  song  by  the 
token  of  the  apple-spray;"  and  "in  the  High 
lands  of  Scotland  the  apple-tree  is  the  badge  of 
the  clan  Lamont." 

The  apple-tree  (Pyrus  mains)  belongs  chiefly 
to  the  northern  temperate  zone.  Loudon  says, 
that  "  it  grows  spontaneously  in  every  part  of 
Europe  except  the  frigid  zone,  and  throughout 
Western  Asia,  China,  and  Japan."  We  have 
also  two  or  three  varieties  of  the  apple  in 
digenous  in  North  America.  The  cultivated 
apple-tree  was  first  introduced  into  this  coun 
try  by  the  earliest  settlers,  and  is  thought  to 
do  as  well  or  better  here  than  anywhere  else. 


AYILD  APPLES.  269 

Probably  some  of  the  varieties  which  are  now 
cultivated  were  first  introduced  into  Britain  by 
the  Romans. 

Pliny,  adopting  the  distinction  of  Theophras- 
tus,  says, —  "  Of  trees  there  are  some  which  are 
altogether  wild  (sylvestres),  some  more  civilized 
(urbaniores)."  Theophrastus  includes  the  apple 
among  the  last ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  in  this  sense 
the  most  civilized  of  all  trees.  It  is  as  harmless 
as  a  dove,  as  beautiful  as  a  rose,  and  as  valu 
able  as  flocks  and  herds.  It  has  been  longer 
cultivated  than  any  other,  and  so  is  more  hu 
manized  ;  and  who  knows  but,  like  the  dog, 
it  will  at  length  be  no  longer  traceable  to  its 
wild  original  ?  It  migrates  with  man,  like  the 
dog  and  horse  and  cow  :  first,  perchance,  from 
Greece  to  Italy,  thence  to  England,  thence  to 
America ;  and  our  Western  emigrant  is  still 
marching  steadily  toward  the  setting  sun  with 
the  seeds  of  the  apple  in  his  pocket,  or  perhaps 
a  few  young  trees  strapped  to  his  load.  At 
least  a  million  apple-trees  are  thus  set  farther 
westward  this  year  than  any  cultivated  ones 
grew  last  year.  Consider  how  the  Blossom- 
Week,  like  the  Sabbath,  is  thus  annually 
spreading  over  the  prairies;  for  when  man 
migrates,  he  carries  with  him  not  only  his 
birds,  quadrupeds,  insects,  vegetables,  and  his 
very  sward,  but  his  orchard  also. 


270  WILD  APPLES. 

The  leaves  and  tender  twigs  are  an  agree 
able  food  to  many  domestic  animals,  as  the 
cow,  horse,  sheep,  and  goat  ;  and  the  fruit 
is  sought  after  by  the  first,  as  well  as  by  the 
hog.  Thus  there  appears  to  have  existed  a 
natural  alliance  between  these  animals  and 
this  tree  from  the  first.  "  The  fruit  of  the 
Crab  in  the  forests  of  France"  is  said  to  be 
"  a  great  resource  for  the  wild-boar." 

Not  only  the  Indian,  but  many  indigenous 
insects,  birds,  and  quadrupeds,  welcomed  the 
apple-tree  to  these  shores.  The  tent-caterpil 
lar  saddled  her  eggs  on  the  very  first  twig 
that  was  formed,  and  it  has  since  shared  her 
affections  with  the  wild  cherry  ;  and  the  can 
ker-worm  also  in  a  measure  abandoned  the 
elm  to  feed  on  it.  As  it  grew  apace,  the  blue 
bird,  robin,  cherry-bird,  king-bird,  and  many 
more,  came  with  haste  and  built  their  nests 
and  warbled  in  its  boughs,  and  so  became 
orchard-birds,  and  multiplied  more  than  ever. 
It  was  an  era  in  the  history  of  their  race. 
The  downy  woodpecker  found  such  a  savory 
morsel  under  its  bark,  that  he  perforated  it  in 
a  ring  quite  round  the  tree,  before  he  left  it,  — 
a  thing  which  he  had  never  done  before,  to  my 
knowledge.  It  did  not  take  the  partridge  long 
to  find  out  how  sweet  its  buds  were,  and  every 
winter  eve  she  flew,  and  still  flies,  from  the 


WILD  APPLES.  271 

wood,  to  pluck  them,  much  to  the  farmer's  sor 
row.  The  rabbit,  too,  was  not  slow  to  learn  the 
taste  of  its  twigs  and  bark  ;  and  when  the  fruit 
was  ripe,  the  squirrel  half-rolled,  half-carried  it 
to  his  hole ;  and  even  the  musquash  crept  up 
the  bank  from  the  brook  at  evening,  and  greed 
ily  devoured  it,  until  he  had  worn  a  path  in  the 
grass  there ;  and  when  it  was  frozen  and  thaw 
ed,  the  crow  and  the  jay  were  glad  to  taste  it 
occasionally.  The  owl  crept  into  the  first  ap 
ple-tree  that  became  hollow,  and  fairly  hooted 
with  delight,  finding  it  just  the  place  for  him ; 
so,  settling  down  into  it,  he  has  remained  there 
ever  since. 

My  theme  being  the  Wild  Apple,  I  will  merely 
glance  at  some  of  the  seasons  in  the  annual 
growth  of  the  cultivated  apple,  and  pass  on  to 
my  special  province. 

The  flowers  of  the  apple  are  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful  of  any  tree's,  so  copious  and  so  delicious 
to  both  sight  and  scent.  The  walker  is  fre 
quently  tempted  to  turn  and  linger  near  some 
more  than  usually  handsome  one,  whose  blos 
soms  are  two  thirds  expanded.  How  superior  it 
is  in  these  respects  to  the  pear,  whose  blossoms 
are  neither  colored  nor  fragrant ! 

By  the  middle  of  July,  green  apples  are  so 
large  as  to  remind  us  of  coddling,  and  of  the  au 
tumn.  The  sward  is  commonly  strewed  with 


272  WILD  APPLES. 

little  ones  which  fall  still-born,  as  it  were,  —  Na 
ture  thus  thinning  them  for  us.  The  Roman 
writer  Palladius  said,  —  "  If  apples  are  inclined 
to  fall  before  their  time,  a  stone  placed  in  a  split 
root  will  retain  them."  Some  such  notion,  still 
surviving,  may  account  for  some  of  the  stones 
which  we  see  placed  to  be  overgrown  in  the 
forks  of  trees.  They  have  a  saying  in  Suffolk, 
England,  — 

"  At  Michaelmas  time,  or  a  little  before, 
Half  an  apple  goes  to  the  core." 

Early  apples  begin  to  be  ripe  about  the  first 
of  August;  but  I  think  that  none  of  them  are 
so  good  to  eat  as  some  to  smell.  One  is  worth 
more  to  scent  your  handkerchief  with  than  any 
perfume  which  they  sell  in  the  shops.  The  fra 
grance  of  some  fruits  is  not  to  be  forgotten, 
along  with  that  of  flowers.  Some  gnarly  apple 
which  I  pick  up  in  the  road  reminds  me  by  its 
fragrance  of  all  the  wealth  of  Pomona,  —  car 
rying  me  forward  to  those  days  when  they  will 
be  collected  in  golden  and  ruddy  heaps  in  the 
orchards  and  about  the  cider-mills. 

A  week  or  two  later,  as  you  are  going  by  or 
chards  or  gardens,  especially  in  the  evenings,  you 
pass  through  a  little  region  possessed  by  the 
fragrance  of  ripe  apples,  and  thus  enjoy  them 
without  price,  and  without  robbing  anybody. 


WILD   APPLES.  273 

There  is  thus  about  all  natural  products  a  cer 
tain  volatile  and  ethereal  quality  which  represents 
their  highest  value,  and  which  cannot  be  vulgar 
ized,  or  bought  and  sold.  No  mortal  has  ever  en- 

t  o 

joyed  the  perfect  flavor  of  any  fruit,  and  only  the 
godlike  among  men  begin  to  taste  its  ambrosial 
qualities.  For  nectar  and  ambrosia  are  only 
those  fine  flavors  of  every  earthly  fruit  which  our 
coarse  palates  fail  to  perceive,  — just  as  we  oc 
cupy  the  heaven  of  the  gods  without  knowing  it. 
When  I  see  a  particularly  mean  man  carrying  a 
load  of  fair  and  fragrant  early  apples  to  market, 
I  seem  to  see  a  contest  going  on  between  him 
and  his  horse,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  apples  on 
the  other,  and,  to  my  mind,  the  apples  always 
gain  it.  Pliny  says  that  apples  are  the  heaviest 
of  all  things,  and  that  the  oxen  begin  to  sweat 
at  the  mere  sight  of  a  load  of  them.  Our  driver 
begins  to  lose  his  load  the  moment  he  tries  to 
transport  them  to  where  they  do  not  belong,  that 
is,  to  any  but  the  most  beautiful.  Though  he 
gets  out  from  time  to  time,  and  feels  of  them, 
and  thinks  they  are  all  there,  I  see  the  stream  of 
their  evanescent  and  celestial  qualities  going  to 
heaven  from  his  cart,  while  the  pulp  and  skin 
and  core  only  are  going  to  market.  They  are 
not  apples,  but  pomace.  Are  not  these  still 
Iduna's  apples,  the  taste  of  which  keeps  the  gods 
forever  young?  and  think  you  that  they  will  let 
18 


274  WILD  APPLES. 

Loki  or  Thjassi  carry  them  off  to  Jotunheim, 
while  they  grow  wrinkled  and  gray  ?  No,  for 
Ragnarok,  or  the  destruction  of  the  gods,  is  not 
yet. 

There  is  another  thinning  of  the  fruit,  com 
monly  n^ar  the  end  of  August  or  in  September, 
when  tb«  ground  is  strewn  with  windfalls ;  and 
this  happens  especially  when  high  winds  occur 
after  rain.  In  some  orchards  you  may  see  fully 
three  quarters  of  the  whole  crop  on  the  ground, 
lying  m  a  circular  form  beneath  the  trees,  yet 
hard  «vnd  green,  —  or,  if  it  is  a  hill-side,  rolled  far 
down  the  hill.  However,  it  is  an  ill  wind  that 
blown  nobody  any  good.  All  the  country  over, 
people  are  busy  picking  up  the  windfalls,  and 
this  will  make  them  cheap  for  early  apple-pies. 

In  October,  the  leaves  falling,  the  apples  are 
more  distinct  on  the  trees.  I  saw  one  year  in  a 
neighboring  town  some  trees  fuller  of  fruit  than 
I  remember  to  have  ever  seen  before,  small  yel 
low  apples  hanging  over  the  road.  The  branches 
were  gracefully  drooping  with  their  weight,  like 
a  bai?>erry-bush,  so  that  the  whole  tree  acquired 
a  new  character.  Even  the  topmost  branches, 
instead  of  standing  erect,  spread  and  drooped  in 
all  directions  ;  and  there  were  so  many  poles  sup 
porting  the  lower  ones,  that  they  looked  like  pic 
tures  of  banian-trees.  As  an  old  English  manu 
script  says,  "  The  mo  appelen  the  tree  bereth, 
the  more  sche  boweth  to  the  folk." 


WILD   APPLES.  275 

Surely  the  apple  is  the  noblest  of  fruits.  Let 
the  most  beautiful  or  the  swiftest  have  it.  That 
should  be  the  "  going  "  price  of  apples. 

Between  the  fifth  and  twentieth  of  October  I 
see  the  barrels  lie  under  the  trees.  And  perhaps 
I  talk  with  one  who  is  selecting  some  choice  bar 
rels  to  fulfil  an  order.  He  turns  a  specked  one 
over  many  times  before  he  leaves  it  out.  If  I 
were  to  tell  what  is  passing  in  my  mind,  I  should 
say  that  every  one  was  specked  which  he  had 
handled  ;  for  he  rubs  off  all  the  bloom,  and  those 
fugacious  ethereal  qualities  leave  it.  Cool  eve- 
ings  prompt  the  farmers  to  make  haste,  and  at 
length  I  see  only  the  ladders  here  and  there  left 
leaning  against  the  trees. 

It  would  be  well,  if  we  accepted  these  gifts 
with  more  joy  and  gratitude,  and  did  not  think 
it  enough  simply  to  put  a  fresh  load  of  compost 
about  the  tree.  Some  old  English  customs  are 
suggestive  at  least.  I  find  them  described 
chiefly  in  Brand's  "  Popular  Antiquities."  It 
appears  that  "  on  Christmas  eve  the  farmers  and 
their  men  in  Devonshire  take  a  large  bowl  of 
cider,  with  a  toast  in  it,  and  carrying  it  in  state 
to  the  orchard,  they  salute  the  apple-trees  with 
much  ceremony,  in  order  to  make  them  bear 
well  the  next  season."  This  salutation  consists 
in  "  throwing  some  of  the  cider  about  the  roots 
of  the  tree,  placing  bits  of  the  toast  on  the 


276  WILD  APPLES. 

branches,"  and  then,  "  encircling  one  of  the  best 
bearing  trees  in  the  orchard,  they  drink  the  fol 
lowing  toast  three  several  times  :  — 

*  Here's  to  thee,  old  apple-tree, 

Whence  thou  mayst  bud,  and  whence  thou  mayst  blow, 
And  whence  thou  mayst  bear  apples  enow  ! 

Hats-full !  caps-full ! 

Bushel,  bushel,  sacks-full ! 

And  my  pockets  full,  too  !     Hurra  ! ' " 

Also  what  was  called  "  apple-howling  "  used 
to  be  practised  in  various  counties  of  England 
on  New- Year's  eve.  A  troop  of  boys  visited  the 
different  orchards,  and,  encircling  the  apple-trees, 
repeated  the  following  words  :  — 

"  Stand  fast,  root !  bear  well,  top  ! 
Pray  God  send  us  a  good  howling  crop  : 
Every  twig,  apples  big  ; 
Every  bow,  apples  enow  !  " 

"  They  then  shout  in  chorus,  one  of  the  boys  ac 
companying  them  on  a  cow's  horn.  During  this 
ceremony  they  rap  the  trees  with  their  sticks." 
This  is  called  "  wassailing "  the  trees,  and  is 
thought  by  some  to  be  "  a  relic  of  the  heathen 
sacrifice  to  Pomona." 
Herrick  sings,  — 

"  Wassaile  the  trees  that  they  may  beare 
You  many  a  plum  and  many  a  peare  ; 
For  more  or  less  fruits  they  will  bring 
As  you  so  give  them  wassailing/' 


WILD  APPLES.  277 

Our  poets  have  as  yet  a  better  right  to  sing  of 
cider  than  of  wine  ;  but  it  behooves  them  to  sing 
better  than  English  Phillips  did,  else  they  will 
do  no  credit  to  their  Muse. 


THE  WILD  APPLE. 

So  much  for  the  more  civilized  apple-trees 
(urbanioresj  as  Pliny  calls  them).  I  love  bet 
ter  to  go  through  the  old  orchards  of  ungrafted 
apple-trees,  at  whatever  season  of  the  year, — 
so  irregularly  planted  :  sometimes  two  trees 
standing  close  together;  and  the  rows  so  de 
vious  that  you  would  think  that  they  not  only 
had  grown  while  the  owner  was  sleeping,  but 
had  been  set  out  by  him  in  a  somnambulic 
state.  The  rows  of  grafted  fruit  will  never 
tempt  me  to  wander  amid  them  like  these. 
But  I  now,  alas,  speak  rather  from  memory 
than  from  any  recent  experience,  such  ravages 
have  been  made ! 

Some  soils,  like  a  rocky  tract  called  the 
Easterbrooks  Country  in  my  neighborhood,  are 
so  suited  to  the  apple,  that  it  will  grow  faster 
in  them  without  any  care,  or  if  only  the  ground 
is  broken  up  once  a  year,  than  it  will  in  many 
places  with  any  amount  of  care.  The  owners 
of  this  tract  allow  that  the  soil  is  excellent  for 
fruit,  but  they  say  that  it  is  so  rocky  that  they 


278  WILD  APPLES. 

have  not  patience  to  plough  it,  and  that,  to 
gether  with  the  distance,  is  the  reason  why  it  is 
not  cultivated.  There  are,  or  were  recently,  ex 
tensive  orchards  there  standing  without  order. 
Nay,  they  spring  up  wild  and  bear  well  there 
in  the  midst  of  pines,  birches,  maples,  and  oaks. 
I  am  often  surprised  to  see  rising  amid  these 
trees  the  rounded  tops  of  apple-trees  glowing 
with  red  or  yellow  fruit,  in  harmony  with  the 
autumnal  tints  of  the  forest. 

Going  up  the  side  of  a  cliff  about  the  first  of 
November,  I  saw  a  vigorous  young  apple-tree, 
which,  planted  by  birds  or  cows,  had  shot  up 
amid  the  rocks  and  open  woods  there,  and  had 
now  much  fruit  on  it,  uninjured  by  the  frosts, 
when  all  cultivated  apples  were  gathered.  It 
was  a  rank  wild  growth,  with  many  green 
leaves  on  it  still,  and  made  an  impression  of 
thorniness.  The  fruit  was  hard  and  green,  but 
looked  as  if  it  would  be  palatable  in  the  winter. 
Some  was  dangling  on  the  twigs,  but  more  half- 
buried  in  the  wet  leaves  under  the  tree,  or  rolled 
far  down  the  hill  amid  the  rocks.  The  owner 
knows  nothing  of  it.  The  day  was  not  observed 
when  it  first  blossomed,  nor  when  it  first  bore 
fruit,  unless  by  the  chickadee.  There  was  no 
dancing  on  the  green  beneath  it  in  its  honor, 
smd  now  there  is  no  hand  to  pluck  its  fruit,  — 
which  is  only  gnawed  by  squirrels,  as  I  per- 


WILD  APPLES.  279 

ceive.  It  has  done  double  duty,  —  not  only 
borne  this  crop,  but  each  twig  has  grown  a 
foot  into  the  air.  And  this  is  such  fruit!  bigger 
than  many  berries,  we  must  admit,  and  carried 
home  will  be  sound  and  palatable  next  spring. 
What  care  I  for  Iduna's  apples  so  long  as  I  can 
get  these  ? 

When  I  go  by  this  shrub  thus  late  and  hardy, 
and  see  its  dangling  fruit,  I  respect  the  tree,  and 
I  am  grateful  for  Nature's  bounty,  even  though 
I  cannot  eat  it.  Here  on  this  rugged  and  woody 
hill-side  has  grown  an  apple-tree,  not  planted  by 
man,  no  relic  of  a  former  orchard,  but  a  natural 
growth,  like  the  pines  and  oaks.  Most  fruits 
which  we  prize  and  use  depend  entirely  on  our 
care.  Corn  and  grain,  potatoes,  peaches,  melons, 
etc.,  depend  altogether  on  our  planting ;  but  the 
apple  emulates  man's  independence  and  enter 
prise.  It  is  not  simply  carried,  as  I  have  said, 
but,  like  him,  to  some  extent,  it  has  migrated  to 
this  New  World,  and  is  even,  here  and  there, 
making  its  way  amid  the  aboriginal  trees ;  just 
as  the  ox  and  dog  and  horse  sometimes  run  wild 
and  maintain  themselves. 

Even  the  sourest  and  crabbedest  apple,  grow 
ing  in  the  most  unfavorable  position,  suggests 
such  thoughts  as  these,  it  is  so  noble  a  fruit. 


280  WILD  APPLES. 

THE  CRAB. 

Nevertheless,  our  wild  apple  is  wild  only  like 
myself,  perchance,  who  belong  not  to  the  abo 
riginal  race  here,  but  have  strayed  into  the 
woods  from  the  cultivated  stock.  Wilder  still, 
as  I  have  said,  there  grows  elsewhere  in  this 
country  a  native  and  aboriginal  Crab- Apple, 
Malus  coronaria,  "  whose  nature  has  not  yet 
been  modified  by  cultivation."  It  is  found 
from  Western  New- York  to  Minnesota,  and 
southward.  Michaux  says  that  its  ordinary 
height  "is  fifteen  or  eighteen  feet,  but  it  is 
sometimes  found  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet 
high,"  and  that  the  large  ones  "  exactly  resem 
ble  the  common  apple-tree."  "  The  flowers  are 
white  mingled  with  rose  -  color,  and  are  col 
lected  in  corymbs."  They  are  remarkable  for 
their  delicious  odor.  The  fruit,  according  to 
him,  is  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter, 
and  is  intensely  acid.  Yet  they  make  fine 
sweetmeats,  and  also  cider  of  them.  He  con 
cludes,  that  "  if,  on  being  cultivated,  it  does 
not  yield  new  and  palatable  varieties,  it  will 
at  least  be  celebrated  for  the  beauty  of  its 
flowers,  and  for  the  sweetness  of  its  perfume." 

I  never  saw  the  Crab- Apple  till  May,  1861. 
I  had  heard  of  it  through  Michaux,  but  more 
modern  botanists,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  not 


WILD  APPLES.  281 

treated  it  as  of  any  peculiar  importance.  Thus 
it  was  a  half-fabulous  tree  to  me.  I  contem 
plated  a  pilgrimage  to  the  "  Glades,"  a  por 
tion  of  Pennsylvania  where  it  was  said  to 
grow  to  perfection.  I  thought  of  sending  to  a 
nursery  for  it,  but  doubted  if  they  had  it,  or 
would  distinguish  it  from  European  varieties. 
At  last  I  had  occasion  to  go  to  Minnesota, 
and  on  entering  Michigan  I  began  to  notice 
from  the  cars  a  tree  with  handsome  rose-col 
ored  flowers.  At  first  I  thought  it  some  va 
riety  of  thorn ;  but  it  was  not  long  before  the 
truth  flashed  on  me,  that  this  was  my  long- 
sought  Crab- Apple.  It  was  the  prevailing  flow 
ering  shrub  or  tree  to  be  seen  from  the  cars  at 
that  season  of  the  year,  —  about  the  middle  of 
May.  But  the  cars  never  stopped  before  one, 
and  so  I  was  launched  on  the  bosom  of  the 
Mississippi  without  having  touched  one,  ex 
periencing  the  fate  of  Tantalus.  On  arriving 
at  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  I  was  sorry  to  be  told 
that  I  was  too  far  north  for  the  Crab- Apple. 
Nevertheless  I  succeeded  in  finding  it  about 
eight  miles  west  of  the  Falls ;  touched  it  and 
smelled  it,  and  secured  a  lingering  corymb  of 
flowers  for  my  herbarium.  This  must  have 
been  near  its  northern  limit. 


282  WILD  APPLES. 


HOW  THE  WILD  APPLE  GROWS. 

But  though  these  are  indigenous,  like  the 
Indians,  I  doubt  whether  they  are  any  hardier 
than  those  backwoodsmen  among  the  apple- 
trees,  which,  though  descended  from  cultivated 
stocks,  plant  themselves  in  distant  fields  and 
forests,  where  the  soil  is  favorable  to  them.  I 
know  of  no  trees  which  have  more  difficulties 
to  contend  with,  and  which  more  sturdily  resist 
their  foes.  These  are  the  ones  whose  story  we 
have  to  tell.  It  oftentimes  reads  thus  :  — 

Near  the  beginning  of  May,  we  notice  little 
thickets  of  apple-trees  just  springing  up  in  the 
pastures  where  cattle  have  been,  —  as  the  rocky 
ones  of  our  Easterbrooks  Country,  or  the  top 
of  Nobscot  Hill,  in  Sudbury.  One  or  two  of 
these  perhaps  survive  the  drought  and  other  ac 
cidents,  —  their  very  birthplace  defending  them 
against  the  encroaching  grass  and  some  other 
dangers,  at  first. 

In  two  years'  time  't  had  thus 
Reached  the  level  of  the  rocks, 

Admired  the  stretching  world, 
Nor  feared  the  wandering  flocks. 

But  at  this  tender  age 

Its  sufferings  began  : 
There  came  a  browsing  ox 

And  cut  it  down  a  span. 


WILD  APPLES.  283 

This  time,  perhaps,  the  ox  does  not  notice 
it  amid  the  grass ;  but  the  next  year,  when  it 
has  grown  more  stout,  he  recognizes  it  for  a 
fellow-emigrant  from  the  old  country,  the  flavor 
of  whose  leaves  and  twigs  he  well  knows ;  and 
though  at  first  he  pauses  to  welcome  it,  and 
express  his  surprise,  and  gets  for  answer,  "  The 
same  cause  that  brought  you  here  brought  me," 
he  nevertheless  browses  it  again,  reflecting,  it 
may  be,  that  he  has  some  title  to  it. 

Thus  cut  down  annually,  it  does  not  despair ; 
but,  putting  forth  two  short  twigs  for  every  one 
cut  off,  it  spreads  out  low  along  the  ground  in 
the  hollows  or  between  the  rocks,  growing  more 
stout  and  scrubby,  until  it  forms,  not  a  tree  as 
yet,  but  a  little  pyramidal,  stiff,  twiggy  mass, 
almost  as  solid  and  impenetrable  as  a  rock. 
Some  of  the  densest  and  most  impenetrable 
clumps  of  bushes  that  I  have  ever  seen,  as 
well  on  account  of  the  closeness  and  stub 
bornness  of  their  branches  as  of  their  thorns, 
have  been  these  wild-apple  scrubs.  They  are 
more  like  the  scrubby  fir  and  black  spruce  on 
which  you  stand,  and  sometimes  walk,  on  the 
tops  of  mountains,  where  cold  is  the  demon 
they  contend  with,  than  anything  else.  No 
wonder  they  are  prompted  to  grow  thorns  at 
last,  to  defend  themselves  against  such  foes. 
In  their  thorniness,  however,  there  is  no  malice, 
only  some  malic  acid. 


284  WILD  APPLES. 

The  rocky  pastures  of  the  tract  I  have  referred 
to,  —  for  they  maintain  their  ground  best  in  a 
rocky  field,  —  are  thickly  sprinkled  with  these 
little  tufts,  reminding  you  often  of  some  rigid 
gray  mosses  or  lichens,  and  you  see  thousands 
of  little  trees  just  springing  up  between  them, 
with  the  seed  still  attached  to  them. 

Being  regularly  clipped  all  around  each  year 
by  the  cows,  as  a  hedge  with  shears,  they  are 
often  of  a  perfect  conical  or  pyramidal  form, 
from  one  to  four  feet  high,  and  more  or  less 
sharp,  as  if  trimmed  by  the  gardener's  art.  In 
the  pastures  on  Nobscot  Hill  and  its  spurs,  they 
make  fine  dark  shadows  when  the  sun  is  low. 
They  are  also  an  excellent  covert  from  hawks 
for  many  small  birds  that  roost  and  build  in 
them.  Whole  flocks  perch  in  them  at  night,  and 
I  have  seen  three  robins'  nests  in  one  which  was 
six  feet  in  diameter. 

No  doubt  many  of  these  are  already  old  trees, 
if  you  reckon  from  the  day  they  were  planted, 
but  infants  still  when  you  consider  their  devel 
opment  and  the  long  life  before  them.  I  counted 
the  annual  rings  of  some  which  were  just  one 
foot  high,  and  as  wide  as  high,  and  found  that 
they  were  about  twelve  years  old,  but  quite 
sound  a«d  thrifty !  They  were  so  low  that  they 
were  unnoticed  by  the  walker,  while  many  of 
their  contemporaries  from  the  nurseries  were 


WILD   APPLES  285 

already  bearing  considerable  crops.  But  what 
you  gain  in  time  is  perhaps  in  this  case,  too, 
lost  in  power,  —  that  is,  in  the  vigor  of  the  tree. 
This  is  their  pyramidal  state. 

The  cows  continue  to  browse  them  thus  for 
twenty  years  or  more,  keeping  them  down  and 
compelling  them  to  spread,  until  at  last  they  are 
so  broad  that  they  become  their  own  fence,  when 
some  interior  shoot,  which  their  foes  cannot 
reach,  darts  upward  with  joy  :  for  it  has  not  for 
gotten  its  high  calling,  and  bears  its  own  pecul 
iar  fruit  in  triumph. 

Such  are  the  tactics  by  which  it  finally  defeats 
its  bovine  foes.  Now,  if  you  have  watched  the 
progress  of  a  particular  shrub,  you  will  see  that 
it  is  no  longer  a  simple  pyramid  or  cone,  but 
that  out  of  its  apex  there  rises  a  sprig  or  two, 
growing  more  lustily  perchance  than  an  orchard- 
tree,  since  the  plant  now  devotes  the  whole  of 
its  repressed  energy  to  these  upright  parts.  In  a 
short  time  these  become  a  small  tree,  an  inverted 
pyramid  resting  on  the  apex  of  the  other,  so  that 
the  whole  has  now  the  form  of  a  vast  hour-glass. 
The  spreading  bottom,  having  served  its  pur 
pose,  finally  disappears,  and  the  generous  tree 
permits  the  now  harmless  cows  to  come  in  and 
stand  in  its  shade,  and  rub  against  and  redden 
its  trunk,  which  has  grown  in  spite  of  them,  and 
even  to  taste  a  part  of  its  fruit,  and  so  disperse 
the  seed. 


286  WILD  APPLES. 

Thus  the  cows  create  their  own  shade  and 
food ;  and  the  tree,  its  hour-glass  being  inverted, 
lives  a  second  life,  as  it  were. 

It  is  an  important  question  with  some  nowa 
days,  whether  you  should  trim  young  apple-trees 
as  high  as  your  nose  or  as  high  as  your  eyes. 
The  ox  trims  them  up  as  high  as  he  can  reach, 
and  that  is  about  the  right  height,  I  think. 

In  spite  of  wandering  kine,  and  other  adverse 
circumstances,  that  despised  shrub,  valued  only 
by  small  birds  as  a  covert  and  shelter  from 
hawks,  has  its  blossom-week  at  last,  and  in 
course  of  time  its  harvest,  sincere,  though  small. 

By  the  end  of  some  October,  when  its  leaves 
have  fallen,  I  frequently  see  such  a  central  sprig, 
whose  progress  I  have  watched,  when  I  thought 
it  had  forgotten  its  destiny,  as  I  had,  bearing  its 
first  crop  of  small  green  or  yellow  or  rosy  fruit, 
which  the  cows  cannot  get  at  over  the  bushy  and 
thorny  hedge  which  surrounds  it,  and  I  make 
haste  to  taste  the  new  and  undescribed  variety. 
We  have  all  heard  of  the  numerous  varieties  of 
fruit  invented  by  Van  Mons  and  Knight.  This 
is  the  system  of  Van  Cow,  and  she  has  invented 
far  more  and  more  memorable  varieties  than 
both  of  them. 

Through  what  hardships  it  may  attain  to  bear 
a  sweet  fruit!  Though  somewhat  small,  it  may 
prove  equal,  if  not  superior,  in  flavor  to  that 


WILD   APPLES.  287 

which  has  grown  in  a  garden,  —  will  perchance 
be  all  the  sweeter  and  more  palatable  for  the 
very  difficulties  it  has  had  to  contend  with. 
Who  knows  but  this  chance  wild  fruit,  planted 
by  a  cow  or  a  bird  on  some  remote  and  rocky  hill 
side,  where  it  is  as  yet  unobserved  by  man,  may 
be  the  choicest  of  all  its  kind,  and  foreign  poten 
tates  shall  hear  of  it,  and  royal  societies  seek  to 
propagate  it,  though  the  virtues  of  the  perhaps 
truly  crabbed  owner  of  the  soil  may  never  be 
heard  of, —  at  least,  beyond  the  limits  of  his  vil 
lage  ?  It  was  thus  the  Porter  and  the  Baldwin 
grew. 

Every  wild-apple  shrub  excites  our  expectation 
thus,  somewhat  as  every  wild  child.  It  is,  per 
haps,  a  prince  in  disguise.  What  a  lesson  to 
man !  So  are  human  beings,  referred  to  the 
highest  standard,  the  celestial  fruit  which  they 
suggest  and  aspire  to  bear,  browsed  on  by  fate ; 
and  only  the  most  persistent  and  strongest  gen 
ius  defends  itself  and  prevails,  sends  a  tender 
scion  upward  at  last,  and  drops  its  perfect  fruit 
on  the  ungrateful  earth.  Poets  arid  philosophers 
and  statesmen  thus  spring  up  in  the  country 
pastures,  and  outlast  the  hosts  of  unoriginal 
men. 

Such  is  always  the  pursuit  of  knowledge. 
The  celestial  fruits,  the  golden  apples  of  the 
Hesperides,  are  ever  guarded  by  a  hundred- 


288  WILD   APPLES. 

headed  dragon  which  never  sleeps,  so  that  it  is 
an  Herculean  labor  to  pluck  them. 

This  is  one,  and  the  most  remarkable  way,  in 
which  the  wild  apple  is  propagated ;  but  com 
monly  it  springs  up  at  wide  intervals  in  woods 
and  swamps,  and  by  the  sides  of  roads,  as  the 
soil  may  suit  it,  and  grows  with  comparative 
rapidity.  Those  which  grow  in  dense  woods 
are  very  tall  and  slender.  I  frequently  pluck 
from  these  trees  a  perfectly  mild  and  tamed 
fruit.  As  Palladius  says,  "  Et  injussu  consterni- 
tur  ubere  mail " :  And  the  ground  is  strewn  with 
the  fruit  of  an  unbidden  apple-tree. 

It  is  an  old  notion,  that,  if  these  wild  trees  do 
not  bear  a  valuable  fruit  of  their  own,  they  are 
the  best  stocks  by  which  to  transmit  to  posterity 
the  most  highly  prized  qualities  of  others.  How 
ever,  I  am  not  in  search  of  stocks,  but  the  wild 
fruit  itself,  whose  fierce  gust  has  suffered  no 
"  inteneration."  It  is  not  my 

"  highest  plot 
To  plant  the  Bergamot." 

THE  FRUIT,  AND  ITS  FLAVOR. 

The  time  for  wild  apples  is  the  last  of  Oc 
tober  and  the  first  of  November.  They  then 
get  to  be  palatable,  for  they  ripen  late,  and  they 
are  still  perhaps  as  beautiful  as  ever.  I  make  a 


WILD  APPLES.  289 

great  account  of  these  fruits,  which  the  farmers 
do  not  think  it  worth  the  while  to  gather, —  wild 
flavors  of  the  Muse,  vivacious  and  inspiriting. 
The  farmer  thinks  that  he  has  better  in  his  bar 
rels,  but  he  is  mistaken,  unless  he  has  a  walker's 
appetite  and  imagination,  neither  of  which  can 
he  have. 

Such  as  grow  quite  wild,  and  are  left  out  till 
the  first  of  November,  I  presume  that  the  owner 
does  not  mean  to  gather.  They  belong  to  chil 
dren  as  wild  as  themselves,  —  to  certain  active 
boys  that  I  know,  —  to  the  wild-eyed  woman  of 
the  fields,  to  whom  nothing  comes  amiss,  who 
gleans  after  all  the  world,  —  and,  moreover,  to 
us  walkers.  We  have  met  with  them,  and  they 
are  ours.  These  rights,  long  enough  insisted 
upon,  have  come  to  be  an  institution  in  some 
old  countries,  where  they  have  learned  how  to 
live.  I  hear  that  "  the  custom  of  grippling, 
which  may  be  called  apple-gleaning,  is,  or  was 
formerly,  practised  in  Herefordshire.  It  consists 
in  leaving  a  few  apples,  which  are  called  the 
gripples,  on  every  tree,  after  the  general  gather 
ing,  for  the  boys,  who  go  with  climbing-poles 
and  bags  to  collect  them." 

As  for  those   I  speak  of,  I  pluck  them   as  a 

wild  fruit,  native  to  this  quarter  of  the  earth, — 

fruit  of  old  trees  that  have  been  dying  ever  since 

I  was  a  boy  and  are  not  yet  dead,  frequented 

19 


290  WILD  APPLES. 

only  by  the  woodpecker  and  the  squirrel,  deserted 
now  by  the  owner,  who  has  not  faith  enough  to 
look  under  their  boughs.  From  the  appearance 
of  the  tree-top,  at  a  little  distance,  you  would 
expect  nothing  but  lichens  to  drop  from  it,  but 
your  faith  is  rewarded  by  finding  the  ground 
strewn  with  spirited  fruit,  —  some  of  it,  perhaps, 
collected  at  squirrel-holes,  with  the  marks  of 
their  teeth  by  which  they  carried  them,  —  some 
containing  a  cricket  or  two  silently  feeding 
within,  and  some,  especially  in  damp  days,  a 
shelless  snail.  The  very  sticks  and  stones  lodged 
in  the  tree-top  might  have  convinced  you  of  the 
savoriness  of  the  fruit  which  has  been  so  eagerly 
sought  after  in  past  years. 

I  have  seen  no  account  of  these  among  the 
"  Fruits  and  Fruit-Trees  of  America,"  though 
they  are  more  memorable  to  my  taste  than  the 
grafted  kinds;  more  racy  and  wild  American 
flavors  do  they  possess,  when  October  and  No 
vember,  when  December  and  January,  and  per 
haps  February  and  March  even,  have  assuaged 
them  somewhat.  An  old  farmer  in  my  neigh 
borhood,  who  always  selects  the  right  word, 
says  that  "  they  have  a  kind  of  bow-arrow 
tang." 

Apples  for  grafting  appear  to  have  been  se 
lected  commonly,  not  so  much  for  their  spirited 
flavor,  as  for  their  mildness,  their  size,  and  bear- 


WILD  APPLES.  291 

ing  qualities,  —  not  so  much  for  their  beauty,  as 
for  their  fairness  and  soundness.  Indeed,  I  have 
no  faith  in  the  selected  lists  of  pomological  gen 
tlemen.  Their  "  Favorites  "  and  "  None-suches  " 
and  "  Seek-no-farthers,"  when  I  have  fruited 
them,  commonly  turn  out  very  tame  and  forget- 
able.  They  are  eaten  with  comparatively  little 
zest,  and  have  no  real  tang  nor  smack  to  them. 

What  if  some  of  these  wildings  are  acrid  and 
puckery,  genuine  verjuice,  do  they  not  still  be 
long  to  the  Pomacece,  which  are  uniformly  inno 
cent  and  kind  to  our  race  ?  I  still  begrudge 
them  to  the  cider-mill.  Perhaps  they  are  not 
fairly  ripe  yet. 

No  wonder  that  these  small  and  high-colored 
apples  are  thought  to  make  the  best  cider.  Lou- 
don  quotes  from  the  "  Herefordshire  Report," 
that  "  apples  of  a  small  size  are  always,  if  equal 
in  quality,  to  be  preferred  to  those  of  a  larger 
size,  in  order  that  the  rind  and  kernel  may  bear 
the  greatest  proportion  to  the  pulp,  which  affords 
the  weakest  and  most  watery  juice."  And  he 
says,  that,  "  to  prove  this,  Dr.  Symonds,  of  Here 
ford,  about  the  year  1800,  made  one  hogshead 
of  cider  entirely  from  the  rinds  and  cores  of  ap 
ples,  and  another  from  the  pulp  only,  when  the 
first  was  found  of  extraordinary  strength  and 
flavor,  while  the  latter  was  sweet  and  insipid." 

Evelyn  says  that  the  "  Red-strake  "  was  the 


292  WILD  APPLES. 

favorite  cider-apple  in  his  day ;  and  he  quotes 
one  Dr.  Newburg  as  saying,  "  In  Jersey  't  is  a 
general  observation,  as  I  hear,  that  the  more  of 
red  any  apple  has  in  its  rind,  the  more  proper  it 
is  for  this  use.  Pale-faced  apples  they  exclude 
as  much  as  may  be  from  their  cider-vat."  This 
opinion  still  prevails. 

All  apples  are  good  in  November.  Those 
which  the  farmer  leaves  out  as  unsalable,  and 
unpalatable  to  those  who  frequent  the  markets, 
are  choicest  fruit  to  the  walker.  But  it  is  re- 
markable  that  the  wild  apple,  which  I  praise  as 
so  spirited  and  racy  when  eaten  in  the  fields  or 
woods,  being  brought  into  the  house,  has  fre 
quently  a  harsh  and  crabbed  taste.  The  Saun- 
terer's  Apple  not  even  the  saunterer  can  eat  in 
the  house.  The  palate  rejects  it  there,  as  it  does 
haws  and  acorns,  and  demands  a  tamed  one ;  for 
there  you  miss  the  November  air,  which  is  the 
sauce  it  is  to  be  eaten  with.  Accordingly,  when 
Tityrus,  seeing  the  lengthening  shadows,  invites 
Melibceus  to  go  home  and  pass  the  night  with 
him,  he  promises  him  mild  apples  and  soft  chest 
nuts, —  mitia  poma,  castanece  molles.  I  fre 
quently  pluck  wild  apples  of  so  rich  and  spicy  a 
flavor  that  I  wonder  all  orchardists  do  not  get  a 
scion  from  that  tree,  and  I  fail  not  to  bring  home 
my  pockets  full.  But  perchance,  when  I  take 
one  out  of  my  desk  and  taste  it  in  my  chamber, 


WILD   APPLES.  293 

I  find  it  unexpectedly  crude,  —  sour  enough  to 
set  a  squirrel's  teeth  on  edge  and  make  a  jay 
scream. 

These  apples  have  hung  in  the  wind  and  frost 
and  rain  till  they  have  absorbed  the  qualities  of 
the  weather  or  season,  and  thus  are  highly  sea 
soned,  and  they  pierce  and  sting  and  permeate  us 
with  their  spirit.  They  must  be  eaten  in  season^ 
accordingly,  —  that  is,  out-of-doors. 

To  appreciate  the  wild  and  sharp  flavors  oi 
these  October  fruits,  it  is  necessary  that  you  be 
breathing  the  sharp  October  or  November  air. 
The  out-door  air  and  exercise  which  the  walker 
gets  give  a  different  tone  to  his  palate,  and  he 
craves  a  fruit  which  the  sedentary  would  call 
harsh  and  crabbed.  They  must  be  eaten  in  the 
fields,  when  your  system  is  all  aglow  with  exer 
cise,  when  the  frosty  weather  nips  your  fingers, 
the  wind  rattles  the  bare  boughs  or  rustles  the 
few  remaining  leaves,  and  the  jay  is  heard 
screaming  around.  What  is  sour  in  the  house 
a  bracing  walk  makes  sweet.  Some  of  these 
apples  might  be  labelled,  "  To  be  eaten  in  the 
wind." 

Of  course  no  flavors  are  thrown  away ;  they 
are  intended  for  the  taste  that  is  up  to  them. 
Some  apples  have  two  distinct  flavors,  and  per 
haps  one-half  of  them  must  be  eaten  in  the 
house,  the  other  out-doors.  One  Peter  Whitney 


294  WILD  APPLES. 

wrote  from  Northborough  in  1782,  for  the  Pro 
ceedings  of  the  Boston  Academy,  describing  an 
apple-tree  in  that  town  "  producing  fruit  of  op 
posite  qualities,  part  of  the  same  apple  being 
frequently  sour  and  the  other  sweet ; "  also  some 
all  sour,  and  others  all  sweet,  and  this  diversity 
on  all  parts  of  the  tree. 

There  is  a  wild  apple  on  Nawshawtuck  Hill 
in  my  town  which  has  to  me  a  peculiarly 
pleasant  bitter  tang,  not  perceived  till  it  is  three- 
quarters  tasted.  It  remains  on  the  tongue.  As 
you  eat  it,  it  smells  exactly  like  a  squash-bug. 
It  is  a  sort  of  triumph  to  eat  and  relish  it. 

I  hear  that  the  fruit  of  a  kind  of  plum-tree  in 
Provence  is  "  called  Prunes  sibarelles^  because  it 
is  impossible  to  whistle  after  having  eaten  them, 
from  their  sourness."  But  perhaps  they  were 
only  eaten  in  the  house  and  in  summer,  and  if 
tried  out-of-doors  in  a  stinging  atmosphere,  who 
knows  but  you  could  whistle  an  octave  higher 
and  clearer  ? 

In  the  fields  only  are  the  sours  and  bitters  of 
Nature  appreciated ;  just  as  the  wood-chopper 
eats  his  meal  in  a  sunny  glade,  in  the  middle  of 
a  winter  day,  with  content,  basks  in  a  sunny  ray 
there  and  dreams  of  summer  in  a  degree  of  cold 
which,  experienced  in  a  chamber,  would  make  a 
student  miserable.  They  who  are  at  work 
abroad  are  not  cold,  but  rather  it  is  they  who  sit 


WILD   APPLES.  295 

shivering  in  houses.  As  with  temperatures,  so 
with  flavors ;  as  with  cold  and  heat,  so  with  sour 
and  sweet.  This  natural  raciness,  the  sours  and 
bitters  which  the  diseased  palate  refuses,  are  the 
true  condiments. 

Let  your  condiments  be  in  the  condition  of 
your  senses.  To  appreciate  the  flavor  of  these 
wild  apples  requires  vigorous  and  healthy  senses, 
papillce  firm  and  erect  on  the  tongue  and  palate, 
not  easily  flattened  and  tamed. 

From  my  experience  with  wild  apples,  I  can 
understand  that  there  may  be  reason  for  a  sav 
age's  preferring  many  kinds  of  food  which  the 
civilized  man  rejects.  The  former  has  the  palate 
of  an  out-door  man.  It  takes  a  savage  or  wild 
taste  to  appreciate  a  wild  fruit. 

What  a  healthy  out-of-door  appetite  it  takes 
to  relish  the  apple  of  life,  the  apple  of  the  world, 
then  ! 

"  Nor  is  it  every  apple  I  desire, 

Nor  that  which  pleases  every  palate  best ; 
'T  is  not  the  lasting  Deuxan  I  require, 

Nor  yet  the  red-cheeked  Greening  I  request, 
Nor  that  which  first  beshrewed  the  name  of  wife, 
Nor  that  whose  beauty  caused  the  golden  strife  : 
No,  no !  bring  me  an  apple  from  the  tree  of  life." 

So  there  is  one  thought  for  the  field,  another  for 
the  house.  I  would  have  my  thoughts,  like  wild 
apples,  to  be  food  for  walkers,  and  will  not  war 
rant  them  to  be  palatable,  if  tasted  in  the  house. 


296  WILD  APPLES. 

THEIR   BEAUTY. 

Almost  all  wild  apples  are  handsome.  They 
cannot  be  too  gnarly  and  crabbed  and  rusty  to 
look  at.  The  gnarliest  will  have  some  redeem 
ing  traits  even  to  the  eye.  You  will  discover 
some  evening  redness  dashed  or  sprinkled  on 
some  protuberance  or  in  some  cavity.  It  is  rare 
that  the  summer  lets  an  apple  go  without  streak 
ing  or  spotting  it  on  some  part  of  its  sphere.  It 
will  have  some  red  stains,  commemorating  the 
mornings  and  evenings  it  has  witnessed ;  some 
dark  and  rusty  blotches,  in  memory  of  the  clouds 
and  foggy,  mildewy  days  that  have  passed  over 
it;  and  a  spacious  field  of  green  reflecting  the 
general  face  of  Nature,  —  green  even  as  the 
fields;  or  a  yellow  ground,  which  implies  a 
milder  flavor,  —  yellow  as  the  harvest,  or  russet 
as  the  hills. 

Apples,  these  I  mean,  unspeakably  fair,  —  ap 
ples  not  of  Discord,  but  of  Concord !  Yet  not 
so  rare  but  that  the  homeliest  may  have  a  share. 
Painted  by  the  frosts,  some  a  uniform  clear 
bright  yellow,  or  red,  or  crimson,  as  if  their 
spheres  had  regularly  revolved,  and  enjoyed  the 
influence  of  the  sun  on  all  sides  alike,  —  some 
with  the  faintest  pink  blush  imaginable,  —  some 
brindled  with  deep  red  streaks  like  a  cow,  or 
with  hundreds  of  fine  blood-red  rays  running 
regularly  from  the  stem-dimple  to  the  blossom- 


WILD  APPLES.  297 

end,  like  meridional  lines,  on  a  straw-colored 
ground,  —  some  touched  with  a  greenish  rust, 
like  a  fine  lichen,  here  and  there,  with  crimson 
blotches  or  eyes  more  or  less  confluent  and  fiery 
when  wet,  —  and  others  gnarly,  and  freckled  or 
peppered  all  over  on  the  stem  side  with  fine 
crimson  spots  on  a  white  ground,  as  if  accident 
ally  sprinkled  from  the  brush  of  Him  who  paints 
the  autumn  leaves.  Others,  again,  are  some 
times  red  inside,  perfused  with  a  beautiful  blush, 
fairy  food,  too  beautiful  to  eat,  —  apple  of  the 
Hesperides,  apple  of  the  evening  sky !  But  like 
shells  and  pebbles  on  the  sea-shore,  they  must 
be  seen  as  they  sparkle  amid  the  withering 
leaves  in  some  dell  in  the  woods,  in  the  autum 
nal  air,  or  as  they  lie  in  the  wet  grass,  and  not 
when  they  have  wilted  and  faded  in  the  house. 

THE  NAMING  OF   THEM. 

It  would  be  a  pleasant  pastime  to  find  suit 
able  names  for  the  hundred  varieties  which  go 
to  a  single  heap  at  the  cider-mill.  Would  it  not 
tax  a  man's  invention,  —  no  one  to  be  named 
after  a  man,  and  all  in  the  lingua  vernacula? 
Who  shall  stand  godfather  at  the  christening  of 
the  wild  apples  ?  It  would  exhaust  the  Latin 
and  Greek  languages,  if  they  were  used,  and 
make  the  lingua  vernacula  flag.  We  should 


298  WILD  APPLES. 

have  to  call  in  the  sunrise  and  the  sunset,  the 
rainbow  and  the  autumn  woods  and  the  wild 
flowers,  and  the  woodpecker  and  the  purple 
finch  and  the  squirrel  and  the  jay  and  the  but 
terfly,  the  November  traveller  and  the  truant 
boy,  to  our  aid. 

In  1836  there  were  in  the  garden  of  the  Lon 
don  Horticultural  Society  more  than  fourteen 
hundred  distinct  sorts.  But  here  are  species 
which  they  have  not  in  their  catalogue,  not  to 
mention  the  varieties  which  our  Crab  might 
yield  to  cultivation. 

Let  us  enumerate  a  few  of  these.  I  find  my 
self  compelled,  after  all,  to  give  the  Latin  names 
of  some  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  live  where 
English  is  not  spoken,  —  for  they  are  likely  to 
have  a  world-wide  reputation. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  the  Wood- Apple  (Mains 
sylvatica) ;  the  Blue-Jay  Apple ;  the  Apple  which 
grows  in  Dells  in  the  Woods,  (sylveslrivallis ,) 
also  in  Hollows  in  Pastures  (campestrivallis) ; 
the  Apple  that  grows  in  an  old  Cellar-Hole 
(Mains  cellaris)}  the  Meadow- Apple ;  the  Par 
tridge-Apple  ;  the  Truant's  Apple,  ( Cessatoris,) 
which  no  boy  will  ever  go  by  without  knocking 
off  some,  however  late  it  may  be;  the  Saun- 
terer's  Apple,  —  you  must  lose  yourself  before 
you  can  find  the  way  to  that ;  the  Beauty  of 
the  Air  (Decus  Aeris) ;  December-Eating ;  the 


WILD    APPLES.  299 

Frozen-Thawed  (gelato-soluta))  good  only  in  that 
state ;  the  Concord  Apple,  possibly  the  same 
with  the  Masketaquidensis ;  the  Assabet  Apple; 
the  Brindled  Apple  ;  Wine  of  New  England  ; 
the  Chickaree  Apple  ;  the  Green  Apple  (Malus 
viridis) ;  —  this  has  many  synonymes  ;  in  an 
imperfect  state,  it  is  the  Cholera  morbifera  aut 
dysenteriferci)  puendis  dilectissima  ;  —  the  Apple 
which  Atalanta  stopped  to  pick  up ;  the  Hedge- 
Apple  (Malus  Sepiitm) ;  the  Slug- Apple  (lima- 
cea) ;  the  Railroad- Apple,  which  perhaps  came 
from  a  core  thrown  out  of  the  cars ;  the  Apple 
whose  Fruit  we  tasted  in  our  Youth  ;  our  Par 
ticular  Apple,  not  to  be  found  in  any  catalogue, 
—  Pedestrium  Solatium ;  also  the  Apple  where 
hangs  the  Forgotten  Scythe  ;  Id  ana's  Apples, 
and  the  Apples  which  Loki  found  in  the  Wood; 
and  a  great  many  more  I  have  on  my  list,  too 
numerous  to  mention,  —  all  of  them  good.  As 
Bodaeus  exclaims,  referring  to  the  cultivated 
kinds,  and  adapting  Virgil  to  his  case,  so  I, 
adapting  Bodceus, — 

"  Not  if  I  had  a  hundred  tongues,  a  hundred  mouths, 
An  iron  voice,  could  I  describe  all  the  forms 
And  reckon  up  all  the  names  of  these  wild  apples." 

THE   LAST  GLEANING. 

By  the  middle  of  November  the  wild  apples 
have  lost  some  of  their  brilliancy,  and  have 
chiefly  fallen.  A  great  part  are  decayed  on  the 


300  WILD  APPLES. 

ground,  and  the  sound  ones  are  more  palatable 
than  before.  The  note  of  the  chickadee  sounds 
now  more  distinct,  as  you  wander  amid  the  old 
trees,  and  the  autumnal  dandelion  is  half-closed 
and  tearful.  But  still,  if  you  are  a  skilful 
gleaner,  you  may  get  many  a  pocket-full  even 
of  grafted  fruit,  long  after  apples  are  supposed 
to  be  gone  out-of-doors.  I  know  a  Blue-Pear- 
main  tree,  growing  within  the  edge  of  a  swamp, 
almost  as  good  as  wild.  You  would  not  sup 
pose  that  there  was  any  fruit  left  there,  on  the 
first  survey,  but  you  must  look  according  to  sys 
tem.  Those  which  lie  exposed  are  quite  brown 
and  rotten  now,  or  perchance  a  few  still  show 
one  blooming  cheek  here  and  there  amid  the 
wet  leaves.  Nevertheless,  with  experienced  eyes, 
I  explore  amid  the  bare  alders  and  the  huckle 
berry-bushes  and  the  withered  sedge,  and  in  the 
crevices  of  the  rocks,  which  are  full  of  leaves, 
and  pry  under  the  fallen  and  decaying  ferns, 
which,  with  apple  and  alder  leaves,  thickly  strew 
the  ground.  For  I  know  that  they  lie  concealed, 
fallen  into  hollows  long  since  and  covered  up  by 
the  leaves  of  the  tree  itself,  —  a  proper  kind  of 
packing.  From  these  lurking-places,  anywhere 
within  the  circumference  of  the  tree,  I  draw 
forth  the  fruit,  all  wet  and  glossy,  maybe  nibbled 
by  rabbits  and  hollowed  out  by  crickets  and  per 
haps  with  a  leaf  or  two  cemented  to  it  (as 
Curzon  an  old  manuscript  from  a  monastery's 


WILD  APPLES.  301 

mouldy  cellar),  but  still  with  a  rich  bloom  on  it, 
and  at  least  as  ripe  and  well  kept,  if  not  better 
than  those  in  barrels,  more  crisp  and  lively  than 
they.  If  these  resources  fail  to  yield  anything, 
I  have  learned  to  look  between  the  bases  of  the 
suckers  which  spring  thickly  from  some  horizon 
tal  limb,  for  now  and  then  one  lodges  there,  or 
in  the  very  midst  of  an  alder-clump,  where  they 
are  covered  by  leaves,  safe  from  cows  which 
may  have  smelled  them  out.  If  I  am  sharp-set, 
for  I  do  not  refuse  the  Blue-Pearmain,  I  fill  my 
pockets  on  each  side ;  and  as  I  retrace  my  steps 
in  the  frosty  eve,  being  perhaps  four  or  five  miles 
from  home,  I  eat  one  first  from  this  side,  and 
then  from  that,  to  keep  my  balance. 

I  learn  from  Topscll's  Gesner,  whose  authority 
appears  to  be  Albertus,  that  the  following  is  the 
way  in  which  the  hedgehog  collects  and  carries 
home  his  apples.  He  says,  —  "  His  meat  is 
apples,  worms,  or  grapes:  when  he  findeth  ap 
ples  or  grapes  on  the  earth,  he  rolleth  himself 
upon  them,  until  he  have  filled  all  his  prickles, 
and  then  carrieth  them  home  to  his  den,  never 
bearing  above  one  in  his  mouth ;  and  if  it  for 
tune  that  one  of  them  fall  off  by  the  way,  he 
likewise  shaketh  off  all  the  residue,  and  wallow- 
eth  upon  them  afresh,  until  they  be  all  settled 
upon  his  back  again.  So,  forth  he  goeth,  making 
a  noise  like  a  cart-wheel ;  and  if  he  have  any 


302  WILD  APPLES. 

young  ones  in  his  nest,  they  pull  off  his  load 
wherewithal  he  is  loaded,  eating  thereof  what 
they  please,  and  laying  up  the  residue  for  the 
time  to  come." 


THE  "  FROZEN-THAWED  "  APPLE. 

Toward  the  end  of  November,  though  some 
of  the  sound  ones  are  yet  more  mellow  and 
perhaps  more  edible,  they  have  generally,  like 
the  leaves,  lost  their  beauty,  and  are  beginning 
to  freeze.  It  is  finger-cold,  and  prudent  farmers 
get  in  their  barrelled  apples,  and  bring  you  the 
apples  and  cider  which  they  have  engaged ;  for 
it  is  time  to  put  them  into  the  cellar.  Perhaps 
a  few  on  the  ground  show  their  red  cheeks 
above  the  early  snow,  and  occasionally  some 
even  preserve  their  color  and  soundness  under 
the  snow  throughout  the  winter.  But  generally 
at  the  beginning  of  the  winter  they  freeze  hard, 
and  soon,  though  undecayed,  acquire  the  color 
of  a  baked  apple. 

Before  the  end  of  December,  generally,  they 
experience  their  first  thawing.  Those  which  a 
month  ago  were  sour,  crabbed,  and  quite  un 
palatable  to  the  civilized  taste,  such  at  least  as 
were  frozen  while  sound,  let  a  warmer  sun  come 
to  thaw  them,  for  they  are  extremely  sensitive 
to  its  rays,  are  found  to  be  filled  with  a  rich, 


WILD  APPLES.  303 

sweet  cider,  better  than  any  bottled  cider  that 
I  know  of,  and  with  which  I  am  better  ac 
quainted  than  with  wine.  All  apples  are  good 
in  this  state,  and  your  jaws  are  the  cider-press. 
Others,  which  have  more  substance,  are  a  sweet 
and  luscious  food,  —  in  my  opinion  of  more 
worth  than  the  pine-apples  which  are  imported 
from  the  West  Indies.  Those  which  lately  even 
I  tasted  only  to  repent  of  it,  —  for  I  am  semi- 
civilized,  —  which  the  farmer  willingly  left  on 
the  tree,  I  am  now  glad  to  find  have  the  prop 
erty  of  hanging  on  like  the  leaves  of  the  young 
oaks.  It  is  a  way  to  keep  cider  sweet  without 
boiling.  Let  the  frost  come  to  freeze  them  first, 
solid  as  stones,  and  then  the  rain  or  a  warm 
winter  day  to  thaw  them,  and  they  will  seem  to 
have  borrowed  a  flavor  from  heaven  through  the 
medium  of  the  air  in  which  they  hang.  Or 
perchance  you  find,  when  you  get  home,  that 
those  which  rattled  in  your  pocket  have  thawed, 
and  the  ice  is  turned  to  cider.  But  after  the 
third  or  fourth  freezing  and  thawing  they  will 
not  be  found  so  good. 

What  are  the  imported  half-ripe  fruits  of  the 
torrid  South,  to  this  fruit  matured  by  the  cold 
of  the  frigid  North  ?  These  are  those  crabbed 
apples  with  which  I  cheated  my  companion, 
and  kept  a  smooth  face  that  I  might  tempt  him 
to  eat.  Now  we  both  greedily  fill  our  pockets 


304  WILD  APPLES. 

with  them,  —  bending  to  drink  the  cup  and  save 
our  lappets  from  the  overflowing  juice,  —  and 
grow  more  social  with  their  wine.  Was  there 
one  that  hung  so  high  and  sheltered  by  the 
tangled  branches  that  our  sticks  could  not  dis 
lodge  it? 

It  is  a  fruit  never  carried  to  market,  that  I 
am  aware  of,  —  quite  distinct  from  the  apple 
of  the  markets,  as  from  dried  apple  and  cider, 
—  and  it  is  not  every  winter  that  produces  it  in 
perfection. 

The  era  of  the  Wild  Apple  will  soon  be  past. 
It  is  a  fruit  which  will  probably  become  extinct 
in  New  England.  You  may  still  wander  through 
old  orchards  of  native  fruit  of  great  extent,  which 
for  the  most  part  went  to  the  cider-mill,  now  all 
gone  to  decay.  I  have  heard  of  an  orchard  in 
a  distant  town,  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  where  the 
apples  rolled  down  and  lay  four  feet  deep 
against  a  wall  on  the  lower  side,  and  this  the 
owner  cut  down  for  fear  they  should  be  made 
into  cider.  Since  the  temperance  reform  and 
the  general  introduction  of  grafted  fruit,  no 
native  apple-trees,  such  as  I  see  everywhere  in 
deserted  pastures,  and  where  the  woods  have 
grown  up  around  them,  are  set  out.  I  fear  that 
he  who  walks  over  these  fields  a  century  hence 
will  not  know  the  pleasure  of  knocking  off 


WILD  APPLES.  305 

wild  apples.  Ah,  poor  man,  there  are  many 
pleasures  which  he  will  not  know !  Notwith 
standing  the  prevalence  of  the  Baldwin  and 
the  Porter,  I  doubt  if  so  extensive  orchards 
are  set  out  to-day  in  my  town  as  there  were 
a  century  ago,  when  those  vast  straggling  cider- 
orchards  were  planted,  when  men  both  ate  and 
drank  apples,  when  the  pomace-heap  was  the 
only  nursery,  and  trees  cost  nothing  but  the 
trouble  of  setting  them  out.  Men  could  afford 
then  to  stick  a  tree  by  every  wall-side  and  let  it 
take  its  chance.  I  see  nobody  planting  trees 
to-day  in  such  out-of-the-way  places,  along  the 
lonely  roads  and  lanes,  and  at  the  bottom  of 
dells  in  the  wood.  Now  that  they  have  grafted 
trees,  and  pay  a  price  for  them,  they  collect  them 
into  a  plat  by  their  houses,  and  fence  them 
in,  —  and  the  end  of  it  all  will  be  that  we 
shall  be  compelled  to  look  for  our  apples  in 
a  barrel. 

This  is  "  The  word  of  the  Lord  that  came  to 
Joel  the  son  of  Pethuel. 

"  Hear  this,  ye  old  men,  and  give  ear,  all 
ye  inhabitants  of  the  land!  Hath  this  been 
in  your  days,  or  even  in  the  days  of  your 
fathers  ?  .  .  .  . 

"  That  which  the  palmer-worm  hath  left  hath 
the  locust  eaten  ;  and  that  which  the  locust  hath 
left  hath  the  canker-worm  eaten ;  and  that  which 


306  WILD  APPLES. 

the  canker-worm  hath  left  hath  the  caterpillar 
eaten. 

"  Awake,  ye  drunkards,  and  weep !  and  howl, 
all  ye  drinkers  of  wine,  because  of  the  new  wine  ! 
for  it  is  cut  off  from  your  mouth. 

"  For  a  nation  is  come  up  upon  my  land, 
strong,  and  without  number,  whose  teeth  are 
the  teeth  of  a  lion,  and  he  hath  the  cheek-teeth 
of  a  great  lion. 

"  He  hath  laid  my  vine  waste,  and  barked 
my  fig-tree;  he  hath  made  it  clean  bare,  and 
cast  it  away ;  the  branches  thereof  are  made 
white 

"  Be  ye  ashamed,  O  ye  husbandmen  !  howl, 
O  ye  vine-dressers !  .  .  .  . 

"  The  vine  is  dried  up,  and  the  fig-tree  lan- 
guisheth  ;  the  pomegranate-tree,  the  palm-tree 
also,  and  the  apple-tree,  even  all  the  trees  of 
the  field,  are  withered  :  because  joy  is  withered 
away  from  the  sons  of  men." 


NIGHT   AND  MOONLIGHT. 

CHANCING  to  take  a  memorable  walk  by  moon 
light  some  years  ago,  I  resolved  to  take  more 
such  walks,  and  make  acquaintance  with  an 
other  side  of  nature  :  I  have  done  so. 

According  to  Pliny,  there  is  a  stone  in  Arabia 
called  Selenites,  "  wherein  is  a  white,  which  in 
creases  and  decreases  with  the  moon."  My 
journal  for  the  last  year  or  two,  has  been  selen 
itic  in  this  sense. 

Is  not  the  midnight  like  Central  Africa  to 
most  of  us  ?  Are  we  not  tempted  to  explore 
it,  —  to  penetrate  to  the  shores  of  its  lake  Tchad, 
and  discover  the  source  of  its  Nile,  perchance 
the  Mountains  of  the  Moon?  Who  knows 
what  fertility  and  beauty,  moral  and  natural,  are 
there  to  be  found?  In  the  Mountains  of  the 
Moon,  in  the  Central  Africa  of  the  night,  there 
is  where  all  Niles  have  their  hidden  heads.  The 
expeditions  up  the  Nile  as  yet  extend  but  to  the 
Cataracts,  or  perchance  to  the  mouth  of  the 
White  Nile ;  but  it  is  the  Black  Nile  that  con 
cerns  us. 

I   shall  be   a   benefactor  if   I   conquer   some 


308  NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT. 

realms  from  the  night,  if  I  report  to  the  gazettes 
anything  transpiring  about  us  at  that  season 
worthy  of  their  attention, — if  I  can  show  men 
that  there  is  some  beauty  awake  while  they  are 
asleep,  —  if  I  add  to  the  domains  of  poetry. 

Night  is  certainly  more  novel  and  less  profane 
than  day.  I  soon  discovered  that  I  was  ac 
quainted  only  with  its  complexion,  and  as  for 
the  moon,  I  had  seen  her  only  as  it  were  through 
a  crevice  in  a  shutter,  occasionally.  Why  not 
walk  a  little  way  in  her  light  ? 

Suppose  you  attend  to  the  suggestions  which 
the  moon  makes  for  one  month,  commonly  in 
vain,  will  it  not  be  very  different  from  anything 
in  literature  or  religion?  But  why  not  study 
this  Sanscrit  ?  What  if  one  moon  has  come  and 
gone  with  its  world  of  poetry,  its  weird  teach 
ings,  its  oracular  suggestions,  —  so  divine  a  crea 
ture  freighted  with  hints  for  me,  and  I  have  not 
used  her  ?  One  moon  gone  by  unnoticed  ? 

I  think  it  was  Dr.  Chalmers  who  said,  criticis 
ing  Coleridge,  that  for  his  part  he  wanted  ideas 
which  he  could  see  all  round,  and  not  such  as  he 
must  look  at  away  up  in  the  heavens.  Such  a 
man,  one  would  say,  would  never  look  at  the 
moon,  because  she  never  turns  her  other  side  to  us. 
The  light  which  comes  from  ideas  which  have 
their  orbit  as  distant  from  the  earth,  and  which 
is  no  less  cheering  and  enlightening  to  the  be- 


NIGHT   AND  MOONLIGHT.  309 

nighted  traveller  than  that  of  the  moon  and 
stars,  is  naturally  reproached  or  nicknamed  as 
moonshine  by  such.  They  are  moonshine,  are 
they  ?  Well,  then  do  your  night-travelling  when 
there  is  no  moon  to  light  you;  but  I  will  be 
thankful  for  the  light  that  reaches  me  from  the 
star  of  least  magnitude.  Stars  are  lesser  or 
greater  only  as  they  appear  to  us  so.  I  will  be 
thankful  that  I  see  so  much  as  one  side  of  a 
celestial  idea,  —  one  side  of  the  rainbow,  —  and 
the  sunset  sky. 

Men  talk  glibly  enough  about  moonshine,  as 
if  they  knew  its  qualities  very  well,  and  despised 
them ;  as  owls  might  talk  of  sunshine.  None 
of  your  sunshine,  —  but  this  word  commonly 
means  merely  something  which  they  do  not  un 
derstand, —  which  they  are  abed  and  asleep  to, 
however  much  it  may  be  worth  their  \vhile  to  be 
up  and  awake  to  it. 

It  must  be  allowed  that  the  light  of  the  moon, 
sufficient  though  it  is  for  the  pensive  walker,  and 
not  disproportionate  to  the  inner  light  we  have, 
is  very  inferior  in  quality  and  intensity  to  that 
of  the  sun.  But  the  moon  is  not  to  be  judged 
alone  by  the  quantity  of  light  she  sends  to  us, 
but  also  by  her  influence  on  the  earth  and  its 
inhabitants.  "  The  moon  gravitates  toward  the 
earth,  and  the  earth  reciprocally  toward  the 
moon."  The  poet  who  walks  by  moonlight  is 


310  NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT. 

conscious  of  a  tide  in  his  thought  which  is  to  be 
referred  to  lunar  influence.  I  will  endeavor  to 
separate  the  tide  in  my  thoughts  from  the  cur 
rent  distractions  of  the  day.  I  would  warn  my 
hearers  that  they  must  not  try  my  thoughts  by 
a  daylight  standard,  but  endeavor  to  realize  that 
I  speak  out  of  the  night,  All  depends  on  your 
point  of  view.  In  Drake's  "  Collection  of  Voy 
ages,"  Wafer  says  of  some  Albinoes  among  the 
Indians  of  Darien,  u  They  are  quite  white,  but 
their  whiteness  is  like  that  of  a  horse,  quite  dif 
ferent  from  the  fair  or  pale  European,  as  they 
have  not  the  least  tincture  of  a  blush  or  sanguine 
complexion.  *  *  Their  eyebrows  are  milk- 
white,  as  is  likewise  the  hair  of  their  heads, 
which  is  very  fine.  *  *  *  They  seldom  go 
abroad  in  the  daytime,  the  sun  being  disagree 
able  to  them,  and  causing  their  eyes,  which  are 
weak  and  poring,  to  water,  especially  if  it  shines 
towards  them,  yet  they  see  very  well  by  moon 
light,  from  which  we  call  them  moon-eyed." 

Neither  in  our  thoughts  in  these  moonlight 
walks,  methinks,  is  there  "  the  least  tincture  of  a 
blush  or  sanguine  complexion,"  but  we  are  in 
tellectually  and  morally  Albinoes,  —  children  of 
Endymion, —  such  is  the  effect  of  conversing 
much  with  the  moon. 

I  complain  of  Arctic  voyagers  that  they  do 
not  enough  remind  us  of  the  constant  peculiar 


NIGHT   AND  MOONLIGHT.  311 

dreariness  of  the  scenery,  and  the  perpetual  twi 
light  of  the  Arctic  night.  So  he  whose  theme 
is  moonlight,  though  he  may  find  it  difficult, 
must,  as  it  were,  illustrate  it  with  the  light  of 
the  rnoon  alone. 

Many  men  walk  by  day ;  few  walk  by  night. 
It  is  a  very  different  season.  Take  a  July  night, 
for  instance.  About  ten  o'clock,  —  when  man 
is  asleep,  and  day  fairly  forgotten,  —  the  beauty 
of  moonlight  is  seen  over  lonely  pastures  where 
cattle  are  silently  feeding.  On  all  sides  novel 
ties  present  themselves.  Instead  of  the  sun 
there  are  the  moon  and  stars,  instead  of  the 
wood-thrush  there  is  the  whip-poor-will,  —  in 
stead  of  butterflies  in  the  meadows,  fire-flies, 
winged  sparks  of  fire !  who  would  have  believed 
it?  What  kind  of  cool  deliberate  life  dwells  in 
those  dewy  abodes  associated  with  a  spark  of 
fire  ?  So  man  has  fire  in  his  eyes,  or  blood,  or 
brain.  Instead  of  singing  birds,  the  half-throt 
tled  note  of  a  cuckoo  flying  over,  the  croaking  of 
frogs,  and  the  intenser  dream  of  crickets.  But 
above  all,  the  wonderful  trump  of  the  bull-frog, 
ringing  from  Maine  to  Georgia.  The  potato- 
vines  stand  upright,  the  corn  grows  apace,  the 
bushes  loom,  the  grain-fields  are  boundless.  On 
our  open  river  terraces  once  cultivated  by  the 
Indian,  they  appear  to  occupy  the  ground  like 
an  army,  —  their  heads  nodding  in  the  breeze. 


312  NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT. 

Small  trees  and  shrubs  are  seen  in  the  midst, 
overwhelmed  as  by  an  inundation.  The  shadows 
of  rocks  and  trees,  and  shrubs  and  hills,  are  more 
conspicuous  than  the  objects  themselves.  The 
slightest  irregularities  in  the  ground  are  revealed 
by  the  shadows,  and  what  the  feet  find  com 
paratively  smooth,  appears  rough  and  diversified 
in  consequence.  For  the  same  reason  the  whole 
landscape  is  more  variegated  and  picturesque 
than  by  day.  The  smallest  recesses  in  the  rocks 
are  dim  and  cavernous ;  the  ferns  in  the  wood 
appear  of  tropical  size.  The  sweet  fern  and  in 
digo  in  overgrown  wood-paths  wet  you  with  dew 
up  to  your  middle.  The  leaves  of  the  shrub-oak 
are  shining  as  if  a  liquid  were  flowing  over  them. 
The  pools  seen  through  the  trees  are  as  full  of 
light  as  the  sky.  "  The  light  of  the  day  takes 
refuge  in  their  bosoms,"  as  the  Purana  says  of 
the  ocean.  All  white  objects  are  more  remark 
able  than  by  day.  A  distant  cliff  looks  like  a 
phosphorescent  space  on  a  hillside.  The  woods 
are  heavy  and  dark.  Nature  slumbers.  You 
see  the  moonlight  reflected  from  particular 
stumps  in  the  recesses  of  the  forest,  as  if  she  se 
lected  what  to  shine  on.  These  small  fractions 
of  her  light  remind  one  of  the  plant  called  moon- 
seed, —  as  if  the  moon  were  sowing  it  in  such 
places. 

In  the  night  the  eyes  are  partly  closed  or  retire 


NIGHT   AND   MOONLIGHT.  313 

into  the  head.  Other  senses  take  the  lead.  The 
walker  is  guided  as  well  by  the  sense  of  smell. 
Every  plant  and  field  and  forest  emits  its  odor 
now,  swamp-pink  in  the  meadow  and  tansy  in 
the  road ;  and  there  is  the  peculiar  dry  scent  of 
corn  which  has  begun  to  show  its  tassels.  The 
senses  both  of  hearing  and  smelling  are  more 
alert.  We  hear  the  tinkling  of  rills  which  we 
never  detected  before.  From  time  to  time,  high 
up  on  the  sides  of  hills,  you  pass  through  a 
stratum  of  warm  air.  A  blast  which  has  come 
up  from  the  sultry  plains  of  noon.  It  tells  of 
the  day,  of  sunny  noon-tide  hours  and  banks, 
of  the  laborer  wiping  his  brow  and  the  bee  hum 
ming  amid  flowers.  It  is  an  air  in  which  work 
has  been  done,  —  which  men  have  breathed.  It 
circulates  about  from  wood-side  to  hill-side  like 
a  dog  that  has  lost  its  master,  now  that  the  sun 
is  gone.  The  rocks  retain  all  night  the  warmth 
of  the  sun  which  they  have  absorbed.  And  so 
does  the  sand.  If  you  dig  a  few  inches  into  it 
you  find  a  warm  bed.  You  lie  on  your  back  on 
a  rock  in  a  pasture  on  the  top  of  some  bare  hill 
at  midnight,  and  speculate  on  the  height  of  the 
starry  canopy.  The  stars  are  the  jewels  of  the 
night,  and  perchance  surpass  anything  which 
day  has  to  show.  A  companion  with  whom  I 
was  sailing  one  very  windy  but  bright  moon 
light  night,  when  the  stars  were  few  and  faint, 


314  NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT. 

thought  that  a  man  could  get  along  with  them, 
—  though  he  was  considerably  reduced  in  his 
circumstances,  —  that  they  were  a  kind  of  bread 
and  cheese  that  never  failed. 

No  wonder  that  there  have  been  astrologers, 
that  some  have  conceived  that  they  were  per 
sonally  related  to  particular  stars.  Dubartas,  as 
translated  by  Sylvester,  says  he'll 

"  not  believe  that  the  great  architect 
With  all  these  fires  the  heavenly  arches  decked 
Only  for  show,  and  with  these  glistering  shields, 
T"  awake  poor  shepherds,  watching  in  the  fields." 
He'll  "  not  believe  that  the  least  flower  which  pranks 
Our  garden  borders,  or  our  common  banks, 
And  the  least  stone,  that  in  her  warming  lap 
Our  mother  earth  doth  covetously  wrap, 
Hath  some  peculiar  virtue  of  its  own, 
And  that  the  glorious  stars  of  heav'n  have  none." 

And  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  well  says,  "  the  stars 
are  instruments  of  far  greater  use,  than  to  give 
an  obscure  light,  and  for  men  to  gaze  on  after 
sunset;"  and  he  quotes  Plotinus  as  affirming 
that  they  "  are  significant,  but  not  efficient ; " 
and  also  Augustine  as  saying,  "  Deus  regit  in- 
feriora  corpora  per  superiora : "  God  rules  the 
bodies  below  by  those  above.  But  best  of  all  is 
this  which  another  writer  has  expressed :  "  Sa 
piens  adjuvabit  opus  astrorum  quemadmodum  ag~ 
ricola  terrce  naturam : "  a  wise  man  assisteth 


NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT.  315 

the  work  of  the  stars  as  the  husbandman  help- 
eth  the  nature  of  the  soil. 

It  does  not  concern  men  who  are  asleep  in 
their  beds,  but  it  is  very  important  to  the  trav 
eller,  whether  the  moon  shines  brightly  or  is 
obscured.  It  is  not  easy  to  realize  the  serene 
joy  of  all  the  earth,  when  she  commences  to 
shine  unobstructedly,  unless  you  have  often  been 
abroad  alone  in  moonlight  nights.  She  seems 
to  be  waging  continual  war  with  the  clouds  in 
your  behalf.  Yet  we  fancy  the  clouds  to  be  her 
foes  also.  She  comes  on  magnifying  her  dan 
gers  by  her  light,  revealing,  displaying  them  in 
all  their  hugeness  and  blackness,  then  suddenly 
casts  them  behind  into  the  light  concealed,  and 
goes  her  way  triumphant  through  a  small  space 
of  clear  sky. 

In  short,  the  moon  traversing,  or  appearing  to 
traverse,  the  small  clouds  which  lie  in  her  way, 
now  obscured  by  them,  now  easily  dissipating 
and  shining  through  them,  makes  the  drama  of 
the  moonlight  night  to  all  watchers  and  night- 
travellers.  Sailors  speak  of  it  as  the  moon  eat 
ing  up  the  clouds.  The  traveller  all  alone,  the 
moon  all  alone,  except  for  his  sympathy,  over 
coming  with  incessant  victory  whole  squadrons 
of  clouds  above  the  forests  and  lakes  and  hills. 
When  she  is  obscured  he  so  sympathizes  with 
her  that  he  could  whip  a  dog  for  her  relief,  as 


316  NIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT. 

Indians  do.  When  she  enters  on  a  clear  field  of 
great  extent  in  the  heavens,  and  shines  unob- 
structedly,  he  is  glad.  And  when  she  has  fought 
her  way  through  all  the  squadron  of  her  foes, 
and  rides  majestic  in  a  clear  sky  unscathed,  and 
there  are  no  more  any  obstructions  in  her  path, 
he  cheerfully  and  confidently  pursues  his  way, 
and  rejoices  in  his  heart,  and  the  cricket  also 
seems  to  express  joy  in  its  song. 

How  insupportable  would  be  the  days,  if  the 
night  with  its  dews  and  darkness  did  not  come 
to  restore  the  drooping  world.  As  the  shades 
begin  to  gather  around  us,  our  primeval  instincts 
are  aroused,  and  we  steal  forth  from  our  lairs, 
like  the  inhabitants  of  the  jungle,  in  search  of 
those  silent  and  brooding  thoughts  which  are 
the  natural  prey  of  the  intellect. 

Richter  says  that  "  The  earth  is  every  day 
overspread  with  the  veil  of  night  for  the  same 
reason  as  the  cages  of  birds  are  darkened,  viz : 
that  we  may  the  more  readily  apprehend  the 
higher  harmonies  of  thought  in  the  hush  and 
quiet  of  darkness.  Thoughts  which  day  turns 
into  smoke  and  mist,  stand  about  us  in  the  night 
as  light  and  flames ;  even  as  the  column  which 
fluctuates  above  the  crater  of  Vesuvius,  in  the 
daytime  appears  a  pillar  of  cloud,  but  by  night 
a  pillar  of  fire." 

There  are  nights  in  this  climate  of  such  se- 


NIGHT   AND   MOONLIGHT.  317 

rene  and  majestic  beauty,  so  medicinal  and  fer 
tilizing  to  the  spirit,  that  methinks  a  sensitive 
nature  would  not  devote  them  to  oblivion,  and 
perhaps  there  is  no  man  but  would  be  better  and 
wiser  for  spending  them  out  of  doors,  though 
he  should  sleep  all  the  next  day  to  pay  for  it ; 
should  sleep  an  Endymion  sleep,  as  the  ancients 
expressed  it,  —  nights  which  warrant  the  Grecian 
epithet  ambrosial,  when,  as  in  the  land  of  Beu- 
lah,  the  atmosphere  is  charged  with  dewy  fra 
grance,  and  with  music,  and  we  take  our  repose 
and  have  our  dreams  awake,  —  when  the  moon, 
not  secondary  to  the  sun, 

"gives  us  bis  blaze  again, 
Void  of  its  flame,  and  sheds  a  softer  day. 
Now  through  the  passing  cloud  she  seems  to  stoop, 
Now  up  the  pure  cerulean  rides  sublime." 

Diana  still  hunts  in  the  New  England  sky. 

"  In  Heaven  queen  she  is  among  the  spheres. 

She,  mistress-like,  makes  all  things  to  be  pure. 
Eternity  in  her  oft  change  she  bears ; 
She  Beauty  is ;  by  her  the  fair  endure. 

Time  wears  her  not ;  she  doth  his  chariot  guide ; 

Mortality  below  her  orb  is  placed  ; 
By  her  the  virtues  of  the  stars  down  slide ; 

By  her  is  Virtue's  perfect  image  cast." 

The  Hindoos  compare  the  moon  to  a  saintly 
being  who  has  reached  the  last  stage  of  bodily 
existence. 


318  NIGHT   AND  MOONLIGHT. 

Great  restorer  of  antiquity,  great  enchanter. 
In  a  mild  night,  when  the  harvest  or  hunter's 
moon  shines  unobstructedly,  the  houses  in  our 
village,  whatever  architect  they  may  have  had 
by  day,  acknowledge  only  a  master.  The  village 
street  is  then  as  wild  as  the  forest.  New  and 
old  things  are  confounded.  I  know  not  whether 
I  am  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  a  wall,  or  on  the  ma 
terial  which  is  to  compose  a  new  one.  Nature 
is  an  instructed  and  impartial  teacher,  spreading 
no  crude  opinions,  and  flattering  none  ;  she  will 
be  neither  radical  nor  conservative.  Consider 
the  moonlight,  so  civil,  yet  so  savage ! 

The  light  is  more  proportionate  to  our  knowl 
edge  than  that  of  day.  It  is  no  more  dusky  in 
ordinary  nights,  than  our  mind's  habitual  atmos 
phere,  and  the  moonlight  is  as  bright  as  our 
most  illuminated  moments  are. 

"  In  such  a  night  let  me  abroad  remain 
Till  morning  breaks,  and  all's  confused  again." 

Of  what  significance  the  light  of  day,  if  it  is 
not  the  reflection  of  an  inward  dawn?  — to  what 
purpose  is  the  veil  of  night  withdrawn,  if  the 
morning  reveals  nothing  to  the  soul  ?  It  is 
merely  garish  and  glaring. 

When  Ossian  in  his  address  to  the  sun  ex 
claims, 

"  Where  has  darkness  its  dwelling  ? 
Where  is  the  cavernous  home  of  the  stars, 


NIGHT  AND   MOONLIGHT.  319 

When  thou  quickly  followest  their  steps, 
Pursuing  them  like  a  hunter  in  the  sky,  — 
Thou  climbing  the  lofty  hills, 
They  descending  on  barren  mountains  ?  " 

who  does  not  in  his  thought  accompany  the 
stars  to  their  "  cavernous  home,"  "  descending  " 
with  them  "  on  barren  mountains  ?  " 

Nevertheless,  even  by  night  the  sky  is  blue 
and  not  black,  for  we  see  through  the  shadow 
of  the  earth  into  the  distant  atmosphere  of  day, 
where  the  sunbeams  are  revelling. 


THE    END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED  HHI 

LOAN  DEPT. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
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LD21A-60m-8,'70 
(N8837slO)476 — A-32 


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